This restaurant features in our Discount Directory, where you can also find many other exclusive cardholder offers. If you don't have a LWL Discount Card, click here to find our more - and start saving! Any regulars will know that the Potters Heron is dear to our hearts, if you have the time to read all about its history (see below) you will know why.We are delighted to report that since our last visit Pebbles Hotels have lavished the most wonderful care and attention on the interior and have also got the food right! The gorgeous interior really has the WOW factor. We all loved the colour scheme and would love to afford their interior designer. As well as being very smart it is also warm and welcoming with lots of different textures of wood, SM said it reminded her of a Canadian lodge! I cant imagine that anyone would not feel comfortable in it. The restaurant has lots of different areas and on different levels making for an intimate atmosphere. We had our usual G&Ts at our table on one of the higher levels of the restaurant whilst making our choices mainly from the Today's Specials menu. There is also an A la carte menu and a Daytime Menu of bar snacks including sandwiches all very reasonably priced. The chef is Guy Baxter who we learnt has worked in many local venues, he is dedicated to using local producers. The service has improved 100% since our last visit, we were looked after very well by the friendly and efficient staff and in particular Kasper who helped us make our choices from the varied menus. Our starter choices were the tower of black pudding, a goats cheese brioche and 2 chose the scallops. Our main choices roasted cod steak, rack of lamb, vegetable stir fry and beef stroganoff. The portions were generous, well presented and the food delicious. Favourite starter, the tower of black pudding, main, the lamb and the beef stroganoff. We shared a hokey pokey cheesecake and a very generous cheese plate. There is a menu on their website to get an idea of individual prices. Remember as we said earlier there is a very reasonably priced bar menu. We had a bottle of Pinot Grigio and finished with coffees from their Caffé Torelli selection (these are available all day). Visited January 2004
A very dear & lifelong friend (JI of LWL) took me here to lunch today as a birthday treat. It was a sentimental journey for both of us, me because my father used to own the Potters Heron way back in the fifties & sixties, & for her because she spent so much time with me there. This is where we learnt to drink ! My Father bought it in the mid fifties when it was just a thatched tea rooms & built it up to become one of the most popular restaurants & bar in the area. He had a ballroom built on the back & it used to have a regular old style dinner & dance (with a live band!) every Saturday night, so we also learnt to dance here! During the winter there was a company dinner dance nearly every night. Very sadly it burnt down one very windy November night in 1966 (ironically it was the firemen's Christmas do the next night), an electrical fault, & of course, because of the wind & the thatch, the fire spread very rapidly. My parents were very lucky to get out alive. They escaped through their bedroom window on to the flat roof of the ballroom. So sad for them as all their hard work building up the business was wasted. It disheartened them so much they sold out to Brickwoods, who built the hotel on; it has been owned by a brewery or hotel chain ever since. My sister (SM, another LWL) & I had left home by this time but we missed the place so much, it was still the hub of our social life, & we had had such happy times growing up there. (SA the 4th LWL, also through our friendship, spent many fun times here. In fact we met aged 11 on the school bus, Route 66, that goes to Winchester past Potters Heron!) Have you gone to sleep yet? If not, a factoid! We were always told that the name Potters Heron evolved as there were Potters on this corner & hurn, an old English word for corner, slowly got changed to Heron, nothing to do with birds! Thank you Pebbles Hotels for making us once again proud of our heritage! |
LWL Silver Award - Awarded February 2009 - Cost ££££££
