The Olive Tree

We had stopped in Romsey to get a late lunch and having walked around the town decided that the Olive Tree looked like the most promsing for the food that we wanted. The pub itself is very cosy and comfortable looking and has a decent beer garden out the back. The staff were actually very friendly and certainly very relaxed — I can probably understand the other comments on slowness. We ordered food which came out in reasonable time but then had forgotten the roated peppers on my goats cheese and roast pepper jacket potatoe. To be honest it was not a big deal at all and was soon rectified once I pointed it out. Overall it’s a really nice pub.

I agree, food is good; better than average pub food. Service is terrible though, waited an hour or so for food even with only a few other tables eating.

On a recent trip to Romsey for lunch with a friend we decided The Olive Tree looked like a great place to grab a bite to eat in comfort. It’s a lovely looking place and has quite a comfortable and cosy feel to it. The menu although not huge offered a big enough for variety for your average customer. We both ended up going for meals of the specials menu which sounded particularly yummy!
We ordered our food and a couple of drinks and sat down to chat while we waited for our food to arrive. Having a catch up we had much to talk about and didn’t notice the time at first but the rumbling tummy helped remind me the food had been a while. In fact it had been about 40 minutes! There weren’t really any staff about and then somebody appeared with food, popped my order in front of me and then my friend said that it wasn’t what she ordered so took it away to get hers. Luckily I didn’t start eating, as 2 minutes later he was back to take mine off me and tell me that both dishes were for other tables and mine was still in the kitchen! Eventually 10 minutes later I complained and mentioned we’d been waiting an hour and still had no food! He apologised and said we’re busy — there were/​had been about 15 people in there max, 4 of which had eaten and left in the time we were waiting!
Food arrived 5 minutes later, it was quite tasty, value for money but I’d advise you only go there if you want to work up a hunger as you wait for your food! Disappointed the also didn’t offer much of an apology or a free drink or anything.