Hardens Guide to the Best Restaurants in Hampshire
Hardens guides have spent 33 years compiling reviews of the best Hampshire restaurants. On Hardens.com you'll find details and reviews of 36 restaurants in Hampshire and our unique survey based approach to rating and reviewing Hampshire restaurants gives you the best insight into the top restaurants in every area and of every type of cuisine.
Featured Hampshire Restaurants
1. The Terrace, Montagu Arms Hotel
British, Modern restaurant in Beaulieu
The extensive House Menu can be enjoyed wherever you feel most comfortable. Whether that’s with the family in tow at our country pub, Monty’s, alfresco in our English country garden or in our smart wood-panelled dining room, The Terrace.
2. Rick Stein
Fish & seafood restaurant in Winchester
7 High Street - SO23
This “very busy” venture is both the most commented-on restaurant in the city and also the most popular spin-off from the Stein family’s original Padstow operation. Aside from the fact that it’s “a little expensive”, no-one has a bad word to say about the place: it has a “fantastic location” and “maintains a high quality of skillful fish cooking” with “frequent changes to the menu”; all delivered by “calm and attentive staff”. “Some say it’s overhyped – it’s actually brilliant!”
3. Cambium
British, Modern restaurant in Brockenhurst
Lyndhurst Rd - SO42
2023 Review: ‘Dylan James’s dishes pay homage to the British countryside, and embrace the nature of the seasons’ – well that’s what the website says! – at this “lovely restaurant in a beautiful hotel”: a New Forest destination that started life as a royal hunting lodge and is nowadays a luxurious spa complex. Reports in our annual diners’ poll agree, all of them applauding its attractive, light interior and brasserie food from an all-day menu that’s “carefully cooked, and good value”.
4. The Chesil Rectory
British, Modern restaurant in Winchester
1 Chesil St - S023
This “quietly excellent” destination inhabits a 600-year-old building five minutes’ from the city centre, and has operated as a restaurant for over 75 years (the current owners took over in 2008). It is second only to Rick Stein locally in terms of the amount of feedback it generates thanks to offering a “very high standard in everything”: “the setting is classical yet relaxed; service is discreet and effective; and the cuisine elegant and well-prepared”. “I am delighted that such restaurants still exist – there are so few like this”. Top Menu Tip – “the lunch and early evening menu is exceptional value”.
5. Kyoto Kitchen
Japanese restaurant in Winchester
5 Bridge Street - SO23
Miff Kayum’s top-performing and “authentic” Japanese offers “an amazing experience every time” (so much so that some fans “visit Winchester solely to visit”). The sushi and sashimi are invariably “excellent”, with the famed ‘Winchester Roll’ a world’s first, being wrapped in wasabi leaf rather than the usual seaweed. They now do an omakase (chef’s choice) menu on Thu-Sat evenings if you feel like pushing the boat out.
6. Gandhi Restaurant
Indian restaurant in Winchester
163-164 High St - SO23
This 36-year veteran “continues to provide the best Indian food in Winchester”, with an “interesting and wide-ranging menu of well-cooked dishes”. There’s an “obliging staff”, although “the ambience is occasionally let down by noisy groups”.
7. Wykeham Arms
British, Modern restaurant in Winchester
75 Kingsgate St - SO23
“Part of the Fuller’s group but a cut above the city’s other pubs”, this famous boozer with rooms (betwixt Cathedral and college) is a “wonderfully atmospheric” spot that’s “the spiritual heir to Orwell’s ‘Moon Under Water’, or ideal public house”. For non-literary types that means “a varied clientele, with some eccentrics”, “a series of cosy and pleasantly cluttered rooms… convivial rather than noisy; no music or TV; and staff who are amiable and helpful”. The food, helmed by 2022 Roux Scholarship semi-finalist Luke Emmess, was consistently well-rated this year.
8. The Ivy Winchester Brasserie
British, Modern restaurant in Winchester
103-104 High Street - SO23
The national brand’s handy High Street perch is “THE place to have breakfast or brunch” locally, attracting uniformly positive reports this year. “The food is on the pricey side, but you get what you pay for” and despite being “always busy”, it’s “still somehow always able to deliver”, with “excellent service” from the “polite and efficient” staff.
9. Hotel du Vin & Bistro
French restaurant in Winchester
Southgate Street - SO23
2021 Review: “The garden’s a joy in summer” at the original HdV, founded 25 years ago in a gorgeous Georgian house – but there’s a persistent feeling that it fails to live up to its attractive setting or extensive cellar, with diners too often “disappointed” by their bistro fare. The chain, which now numbers 19 boutique hotels, has been sold twice in the last 10 years.
10. Bangkok Bistro
Thai restaurant in Winchester
33 Jewry St - SO23
With its “superb range of dishes” plumbing lesser-known regions of Thailand, and also “combined with swift service”, this three-year-old operation strikes reporters as quite the find – and if you’re a vegan, they work miracles replacing the fishy sauces Thai classics are so often based around.
11. The Avenue, Lainston House Hotel
British, Modern restaurant in Winchester
Woodman Ln - SO21
2021 Review: “A classical set-up with comfy armchairs and a roaring fire, tea served with sandwiches, scones, jam, cream and cakes – this picturesque country house hotel takes us plebs all back to a bygone age” and is very highly recommended for afternoon tea. Feedback on more ambitious fare in its plush dining room was a little more up-and-down last year and relatively limited, coinciding with the departure of highly rated exec chef Andrew Birch after only two years. His replacement, Phil Yeomans, returns after leaving as head chef in 2014.
12. Caracoli
Sandwiches, cakes, etc restaurant in Alresford
15 Broad St - SO24
2021 Review: An “excellent coffee and cake selection” (verging on the “healthy” side), supported by “interesting” snack lunches underpin the allure of this town-centre café – and “in summer you can retire to the courtyard or sit out front to watch the world go by”; “unfortunately the branch in Winchester has now closed”.
13. The Fox
British, Modern restaurant in Crawley
Peach Hill Lane - S021
“Your standard pub this is definitely not” – in fact it’s “quite likely one of the best places to eat in the Winchester area” – a “quintessential Victorian village pub” updated six years ago with a “large, modern dining area” offering a “monthly, small and very well considered menu” along with “excellent service”.
14. Shoe Inn
British, Modern restaurant in Exton
Shoe Ln - SO32
2022 Review: “Have a lovely walk to work up an appetite” before visiting this laidback brick-walled boozer on the River Meon, handy for the South Downs Way, and with a “very nice little garden down by the brook”. To make sure of enjoying its “great” pubby staples “you need to book – even midweek – as it’s very popular”.
15. Clos du Marquis
French restaurant in Stockbridge
Nomads House, High Street - SO20
“Garth (maître d’) and his wife (Maranda, the chef) run a truly delightful restaurant”, say fans of this long-running French venture, which the duo took over a decade ago from Paris-born chef German Marquis, and recently shepherded from its former setting on the A30 to a handier high street location. By all accounts, Maranda’s cooking is “superb” (prompting “possibly the best meal” one reporter had this year) and service is “excellent” too.
16. Thyme & Tides
Fish & chips restaurant in Stockbridge
The High St - SO20
2021 Review: “Rather nice brunches and lunches await at this deli-café, with half a dozen specials chalked on the board” plus a garden and fish ‘n’ chip Friday nights. Though it serves an “upmarket clientele in an upmarket village”, it’s still “good value, with charming young staff” to boot.
17. Greyhound
British, Modern restaurant in Stockbridge
31 High Street - SO20
In a “beautiful setting on the Test” in prime fly-fishing territory, Lucy Townsend’s decade-old hotel inspires strong feedback as both a romantic destination and a top dining pub. The “British-style food with nods to the Orient” is uniformly well-rated and abetted by “confident and skilled” service (they’re equally “welcoming to dogs, with generous treats included”). “I very rarely, if ever, say this but I couldn’t fault it!” Top Tip – the courtyard is “absolutely perfect for quality outdoor eating”.
18. Spot in the Woods
British, Modern restaurant in Woodlands
174 Woodlands Rd, Netley Marsh, New Forest - SO40
2021 Review: “TerraVina’s resurrection” – “in its new guise as a boutique B&B and café” – “has become a real favourite in the beautiful New Forest”. Founder Gerard Basset, the famed wine expert behind the original Hotel du Vin, died in January 2019 after a two-year fight against cancer, and his widow Nina has kept the business going. There are “no evening meals now, but breakfasts and lunches are splendid” and “in summer it’s lovely to sit in the garden”.
19. Les Mirabelles
French restaurant in Nomansland
Forest Edge Rd - SP5
“Fab French food in the middle of nowhere” – on the edge of the New Forest – has won a devoted fan club for Claude Laage’s establishment, now 30 years old and an “all-time favourite restaurant” to many for its “wonderful Gallic experience” and “superb wine list”. You can also eat inexpensively here, from its ‘Le Frog bistro’ menu – same space and servers but much less fancy Gallic fare.
20. Hartnett Holder & Co
Italian restaurant in Lyndhurst
Beaulieu Rd - SO43
“The Italian-style food is a treat to behold” at this out-of-town retreat from Anglo-Italian chef Angela Hartnett (of Murano in Mayfair) with chef Luke Holder, in a New Forest hotel that’s “a place to be seen in, for a special occasion”. “Full of character and brimming with fine furnishings”, it’s “a beautiful venue for a (pricey) treat”, although lapses drag the ratings down: more critical diners feel “it’s a very good restaurant, but it never seems to get everything completely right at the same time!” and service in particular can be “surprisingly varied”. Top Tip – “ask for a table in the more attractive main room when booking”.
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