The Whitebrook

What a find! Didn't expect to have such a fantastic meal today. Unusual, and often locally sourced, ingredients, beautifully presented meals. Staff were friendly, informative and attentive. A thoroughly enjoyable dining experience.

I'm not one to write snide comments after leaving. Everything I write here was said directly to the owner. Firstly, my wife and I are "fine Diners" we look for new places to eat with a Michelin stars or similar, and we have been fortunate enough to have eaten at some of the finest places in the country, we are lucky, money is not and issue, we just love the best food,, but never in 20 years have we ate in such a dreadful place as this, we opted for the signature tasting menu, with the wine flight,, the whole experience took 5 hours, each course took an age to appear, and each portion could be picked up with a fork and eaten in one mouthful, with each portion, the scruffy looking wine waitor gave a laughable disciption, suggesting just about every friut you could think of with other silly discriptions like "farmyard" smells!, the wine was discusting, and our table was littered with glasses of winw with one sip taken. This is a nice place, with good accommodation; clearly, they have spent a lot of money. Breakfast was almost as bad: dry bacon, tasteless sausages, and only sourdough bread, which I detest. All in all, I wouldn't go back here if it were free, including a brown envelope with £500 in it.

My wife and I stayed on Thursday. We had one of the smaller rooms on the top floor. With the tasting menu for dinner and the breakfast the following morning. Everything was superb - from the welcome when we arrived. The room - with a great selection of teas and some superb coffee. To a sumptuous 9 course dinner to a fabulous breakfast||Every dish throughout dinner was beautifully presented, explained thoroughly and the taste was exceptional. Breakfast the following morning was also crafted to the next level. Again four courses but light and tasty - just what was needed after a long dinner the previous night. ||We saw a couple of indifferent reviews and these people must have gone to a different establishment. ||We can’t recommend the Whitebrook enough and deserves to be packed out every day and evening

We stayed the night at The Whitebrook and enjoyed the 9 course tasting menu with paired wines. Every course was delicious and we agreed that it was the best tasting menu we had ever eaten. The dishes were inventive, beautiful to look at and tasted gorgeous. The sommelier was very knowledgeable and friendly and we were thrilled with the unusual (but perfectly suited) wines he had chosen. It takes a long evening to enjoy such a menu and it was well worth staying over in the comfortable bedroom with lovely view over the garden. Breakfast was a tasting menu of everything listed, served by Chris and we did not need any lunch! We can thoroughly recommend The Whitebrook and are full of admiration for its approach.

This is a copy of an e-mail I have sent to the owners of the Whitebrook twice and received no reply. I wanted to feed back on the experience we had at the Whitebrook yesterday evening (August 2nd). We had booked the 9-course tasting menu as a treat for our anniversary and were looking forward to a wonderful evening out. I would also like to preface this with the fact we are no strangers to fine dining and have eaten out in many exceptional restaurants both at home and abroad. We arrived at the restaurant promptly at three minutes to seven for our reservation at seven and were ushered somewhat hurriedly through to the restaurant area and seated. While we were offered water straight-away, it was twenty minutes before we even had sight of a wine list, for which we had to ask the waiter. We were served a selection of courses, all intricately detailed, with a huge amount of effort and lots of different flavours involved. It was clear there was real expertise in the kitchen, although we felt that perhaps the complexity was sometimes to the detriment of the real star ingredients, which should maybe have been allowed to shine more. The service was polite and effective throughout. The major issue we had was the pace at which the courses came out. I am well aware that fine dining is not fast food, and these intricate dishes take time to prepare, but a tiny plateful of food every half an hour to forty minutes makes for a very long evening. It was well over three hours before we got to the ‘main’ course, the hogget, and by this stage we simply did not have the energy for the remaining two courses. We informed the sommelier accordingly and asked that we be brought the bill and not charged for the remaining two courses. We were told that the Whitebrook does not like to rush the experience, and we should have been aware that it could take up to three and a half hours to get through the courses. We were already three and a half hours in with two more courses to go. The time shown on our bill is 22:41. The younger male member of staff then came to our table, admitted they were a chef down for the evening and accused us of arriving late. He said it was made clear that they liked diners to arrive half an hour beforehand for a drink in the bar (we have checked through all our correspondence and have scoured your website, including going through a full new booking process (but not completing it) and no mention is made of this). He added that the fact that we did not do this supposedly threw all their timings off, so our service did not in fact start until 1940. I have certainly not come across a restaurant that insists on customers arriving half an hour in advance of their reservation time. He tried to turn the blame for the slow food on us in spite of the fact that the sommelier had already admitted it had taken too long and agreed with us (in front of him) that we had indeed arrived before 19:00. We find that conduct utterly unacceptable. We did not withhold the service charge as that would have been unfair on the other staff members, i.e. the waitress and the sommelier. We were charged full price for the tasting menu and one bottle of wine but not charged for one extra glass of wine each or our water. I do not believe is it is fair that we were falsely accused of arriving late. Promptness is something that is very dear to our hearts and I’m sure you have CCTV footage that proves we were exactly on time for our booking. Had the staff merely apologised for the slow delivery of food due to the fact they only had two chefs, we would have thought nothing more of it. As it is, the attitude of your staff left us with a very sour taste in our mouths.

The 7 course taster lunch was a Christmas present for my husband. Food was sublime. Every course was amazing. Visited here as we’d seen the chef on the Great British Menu (not Masterchef as I told the chef when we met him afterwards to congratulate him on the wonderful food we’d just eaten🤣) Definitely worth a visit.

Lovely. The food is light, fulfilling and dellicately delicious. The tasting menu with wine pairing replenished and energised rather than leaving me stuffed full. The staff are very informative, attentive, and lovely and made our stay very enjoyable . The Whitebrook feels like a doorway to the wild lands that surround and nourish it. Wonderful.

Wife and I went in there just for food. It was incredible. You do need a bit of time, it’s a 9 course meal but they do give you a few extras here and there so it becomes a lengthy one. Just ignore your phone and enjoy the food really :) it’s amazing and the staff is incredibly friendly and knowledgeable. The photo I’m adding is of my favourite dish of the night.

Such a wonderful experience! Although the food and setting was gorgeous, service felt unpretentious and wonderfully paced. The soundtrack for the afternoon was likewise; I think I expected some form of ambient trance and, this is not a joke, "Down in New Orleans" from Disney's "Princess and the Frog" played during our appetizer course (we thought this was hilarious and awesome). With regard to drinks, the seasonal Sorrel Daiquiri was my friend's favorite and the wine selection was very interesting with lots of English and Welsh options. I ordered off of the vegetarian menu and I didn't miss meat for a heartbeat--and, as a bonus, they grow, harvest, and serve a number of vegetables from their own property. It can feel like a financial investment, and it's certainly out of the way, but well worth it.

Excellent family celebratory lunch at this very special restaurant. Second visit this year, menu very different but equally stunning. Agree with previous reviewers comment that a word from chef patron would add icing on the cake. Love the creative use of locally forged ingredients.

Stayed here in October 2015 with my husband as a special treat. He grew up in the area and had wanted to return to try it - glad we did! A very warm welcome awaited us, and we were shown to our room where freshly-baked warm Welshcakes awaited us. I took a leisurely bath and got ready for our tasting menu dinner. The food was phenomenal - having eaten shortly beforehand at Tom Kitchin's in Edinburgh, aspects of this meal were even better. The canapes, the cocktails, the bread, the nice touch of the nettle macaron to send you off to bed - all amazing. The service was really exceptional, really fantastic. They were also happy to accommodate my dietary requirements and substitute dishes, which was great. The only downside to dinner was that the chef patron walked out of the kitchen and straight past us (and then back to kitchen) without greeting any of the diners - seemed a bit odd when he wasn't really that busy and there were only 4 of us. It didn't mar our enjoyment of the meal, but would have been an "icing on the cake" touch. The chap who was in charge of service was really brilliant - his recommendations were spot-on. The dining room is very small, only one other couple were dining at the same time of us - the atmosphere was a little weird as they appeared to have fallen out before dinner! But we had a great time, despite my partner having a terrible cold. We had a great night's sleep in the comfortable bed, and then breakfast next morning was another culinary triumph. I can't wait to go back soon!