Fleur de Lys Hotel, Cranborneback to pub details please note - reviews on this site are purely the opinion of site visitors, so don't take them too seriously.
Now it's "The Inn at Cranborne" and isn't really a "pub" any more, but a restaurant that happens to serve drink as well. Personally, I preferred it before. But this sort of thing is happening to more and more pubs: they need to change to stay alive. A pity, though.
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We visited this pub over 3 years ago when the previous owners had it.
It is fair to say that the owners were a little rude and odd but it did'nt stop us eating and drinking here two nights in a row.
I understand that it has now reopened as a gastro pub so we won't be going back.
7/10
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Once upon a time this pub Inn was a proper Pub and was patronized by masses of people from miles around. During the time of Charles Hancock who owned it, the food was superb, the service was excellent for years and remained that way even after he had sold-up to a new management.
My wife and I regularly dined and drank there. But a couple of years ago we showed up whilst on holiday in Dorset and to our horror found this Inn was being run by a seemingly jumped-up snob who refused to let us enter the Inn with our dog, and wouldn't even sanction that we had a meal outside in the beer garden with our dog beside us.
It was a hot afternoon and too stifling to leave the dog in the car.
When we realised it had been turned into a Gastro pub we knew then that the place had lost its credibility and we decided we wouldn't eat at his Inn if it was the last place left on earth. I said at the time that it was more likely now a Gastro Enteritis pub!
We left and decided we wouldn't give him the pleasure of taking our money and that was the death of the Fleur as we knew it. Gastro pub indeed! It's aggressive take-overs like this that are responsible for the death of the British Pub and not the changing tastes of the public nor the drink drive laws nor the non smoking ones - the pubs have mainly survived that. They'll not survive gastro rubbish.
No doubt the food there is all promoted by printed fanciful nonsense about how it is "created" with very little information about what it actually is.
I rate it 1 out of 10 for the fact that it still looks like the Fleur we knew from the outside. As for the inside and the bottom line, well I wouldn't even bother to buy a packet of nuts in there now on principle because of the grossly unfriendly and stuck-up attitude of the new landlord.
I won't say what I hope will happen to it in the future as I expect you know.
Plado - 25 Dec 2011 15:42 |
Gastro Pub: really!
This notion is pass� while still pretentious twaddle.
The food is fine but the pub is shabby but not shabby chic.
The staff are odd and if I were to be uncharitable, I would say the landlord is either on some medication pr drinking too much of his stock or ill.
This has the feel of some "last chance saloon for the old swinger, on his last throw, after a successful early life. Sad sad sad. It is like this was cheaper renting the pub than renting a house.
Get rid of the Gastro title, pay more attention to providing some good wholesome food, spend more time on proper customer service.
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This is a shabby country pub with pretensions. the restaurant menu is a single photocopied sheet with 'specials' chalked on a blackboard; it specialises in fish and game which are well cooked and presented. That's the good bit.
Service is terrible. there is no welcome, the barman seemed sub-normal. we waited 30 minutes before even a hint that our meals were on the way and a further 5 mins before they arrived; accompanied by the smallest dish of vegetables (to be shared by 3 people) that I have ever seen. Or ice cream desert took 10 minutes to arrive! prices are shockingly high. decor is dark, furniture uncomfortable. The gents' loo is scruffy, the single cubicle door doesn't shut and the toilet roll was on the floor.
Sometime after going there I spoke to a friend who had been there the week before and had a similar dissapointing experience.
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excellent food and very reasonably priced. a very enjoyable visit. staff were very friendly and welcoming of a muddy dog and 4 pairs of muddy boots !. Dogs only allowed in the bar, but that was fine for eating and drinking. Landord even reserved a table for us without us asking, when re rang earlier in the day. Will definitely go back.
anonymous - 3 Feb 2007 22:40 |
Excellent food, ale and accommadation in this large, welcoming pub. Been here on several occasions over the years and have loved each visit. There is another pub around the corner, a little less grand, called (I believe) The Sheaf And Arrow(s) which is also worth a visit. A lovely part of the world.
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