The Waterwitch Reviews

Amazing service from Sarah and food was great as well .Well done everyone!

Lovely place and atmosphere, friendly staff, dog friendly, really good food, highly recommended !

Has, in the past, been our first choice but no more, I am not sure if there has been a change of landlord but there has been a drastic staff change, too slow at the bar and far too slow with the food service such a pity but good help them when summer arrives with all the covers inside and out that this pub has

Beautiful location near the Basingstoke canal. Great watering hole. Roast was ok potatoes were a bit disappointing.

I ordered the Fish & Chips.

I was able to demonstrate to the waitress that the peas were not as mushy as advertised by breaking off a chunk and repeatedly dropping it to the plate.

The replacement peas came in a small... bowl? of the size I would have expected a portion of ketchup to be served.

Contrary to expectations, the fish became drier as I progressed, despite beginning at the tail end, under the batter, the flakes had dried and split apart. This end was inedible and was left on my plate having ruined my appetite for anything further.

Staff were friendly.

Went twice in one week.took my dad for lunch today, and we both enjoyed it very much. Thank you to all the staff. Very friendly.

Nice location. Good food. Been there several times now.

Lovely beer garden, great to sit outside and relax in the summer. Food selection is the same as other chain pubs but the atmosphere makes up for it.

Lovely setting and great place to visit following our boating trip with Marine Galleon!

Excellent in every aspect. Good good, great service, value for money and lovely ambiance.

Great food and drink selection and a amazing location if the weather is good out side seating, it's a little hard to find but you will not be disappointed.

We have visited the Waterwitch on many occasions and have never been disappointed. The food is very good and there is a good selection. My wife has discovered the Violet Gin and really enjoys it.

Used to be good. Now just a standard boring brewers pub chain. Soulless.

Great food service and prices. The duck on the festive menu was a very small helping. There were two MASSIVE plates of food on our table and two that were disappointingly small. I won't order that again tasty though it was.

I use it as a refreshment stop whilst running the Basingstoke canal, it's not cheap and sometimes not very welcoming if you walk through their door in wet muddy clothes.

Really lovely meal. For a couple of our party, the portion sizes were a bit on the small side though.

Very good food and plenty of it
The staff are most helpful and nothing is too much trouble.

Visited this pub after a walk around the area which was beautiful. Pub however looked beautiful with a lovely name underperformed. Burger was tiny and had that distinct microwave feeling to it. Bartender and manager was a nice guy but the other staff were openly complaining about her job and messy customers. Only thing that would save this from a one star was the giant garden area, although the garden was sparce, it's nice to have some green space.

Very nice surroundings & pub .. staff friendly .. unfortunately the food was luke warm when served & the vegetables were very hard & hardly any on the plate when served .. not the best value.

Fantastic food. Everyone's meal was amazing. Very friendly and funny staff. Very relaxing time. Highly recommended it.

Nice place and don't doubt food is lovely but wasn't even able to get a drink. Best to book for food on Sunday for sure.

Great location, nice food but having one small bar and one till where everyone has to que for food and drinks does not work.

Cosy out of the way with free parking and canal walk very near by.
Good fare priced okay good service and ales available.

we have recently moved to the village, and we have enjoyed trying out all the new places to eat,. found this place, and its just perfect, love the low celing and beams everywhere. and the food was amazing, this is why we moved from the city

Mediocre food and absent service. Pretty standard for a chef and brewer. The usual pack of health and safety includes taps in the disabled toilet not fitted to the sink and capable of drenching the most capable invalid.
If you want to see how not to run a pub. It's worth a visit if for nothing more than a sense of morbid curiosity.
Do request the tables adjacent to the toilets equipped with special features such as realistic odour and extra loud closing mechanisms to make the door slam regularly throughout your meal!

Sirloin was not very good. Service was a bit slow. All other meals were very good.

Really nice place on the canal, plenty of outdoor seating and the food was really nice!

Cosy pub, very welcoming and the food is very tasty

Average food
Very good location

Staff were really friendly and fun, food was great and good value

Nice place to meet up with friends before going on a canal trip

Came here for a last minute lunch with my partner and was not expecting what we received!! Upon arriving we were seated and given option of where we wanted to sit and were handed over to our waitress who s name I forget but she was wonderful!

We had 2 sirloin steaks as they were on offer, and they were cooked to perfection! Cocktails and mocktails were made to a high standard and served perfectly and all tasted amazing! We don t normally stay for dessert anywhere, but today we wanted too and had a salted caramel Sunday and a chocolate and raspberry torte both of which were delightful!

A tasty lunch, accompanied with great service! What more could you ask for?

See you soon!

Perhaps a little over rated. Food is ok , nothing special, and staff are very nice.

Friendly staff but they ran out of fish for a fish and chips meal early on a Saturday evening. How did that happen?

Good food good service but a bit too hot with tables crammed into radiators I guess it is the time of year for it. Will go again

Grate food good price good staff thank you will be going back

Food was very good and worth the wait, fortunately we were not in a hurry (it was Tuesday lunchtime, nearly 2 and half hours for 3 courses). Good social distancing and Covid 19 practices in place.

Only went for drink so not sure what menu is like and weather they cater for people who need a gluten free menu. However dogs allowed.

Nice meal, good service, very good portion sizes, 4 stars because one rump steak was a bit grizzly but not to serious

Terrible service, average food and rude staff

My mum and her 12 friends booked lunch and were asked to pre order which they did. When they arrived the staff showed them to a cramped table with not enough space to eat comfortably. They were then asked to pre pay for their meals before it was served which all but 2 of the group did despite feeling this was a strange request, rudely delivered. The food when it arrived ranged from okay to below average. They then decided to order pudding and asked about the pudding offer with the lunch menu. The staff then replied they couldn t have the pudding as they d pre paid. One of the group who hadn t pre paid asked if she could have menu to see the pudding choices at which point the member of staff walked off and never came back. My mums group sat and waited and eventually left without being able to order either pudding or coffee. Many of the ladies in this group group are really active within the local community having a wide network of friends and groups they belong to and all of them without fail would now never recommend the Water Witch. So not only did they miss out on business that day because of their terrible service but also on a great deal of future business. Also and no less importantly they actually really upset a group of friends looking to have a pleasant lunch in hospitable surroundings with their rude and unprofessional manner.

We arrived at 12:30, so ahead of the main lunchtime rush. The place itself is nice looking, parking was easy etc. I wanted a light lunch so ordered a Caesar Salad, the young lady came back and said that they didn't have any Caesar sauce, would I still like the salad? No thanks, then it wouldn't be a Caesar salad would it! In the end I ordered a burger and chips, just to have something. The burger was OK but the chips were overcooked, the whole setup seems disorganised on the day I visited.
I was primarily there to meet an old friend, so thankfully the meal was secondary.
If I wasn't there with my friend frankly I would have left after the "Caesar Sauce" fiasco. To a degree I can understand running out of something fresh like lobster, but not having a common sauce is just silly and poor customer service.
...........
Update: Firstly The manager Morgan contacted me right away, as you can see below, I called her back, she apologised and explained what had happened. She invited us back for a second visit. We called by again on Thursday the 24th September and were met by Lindsay who made us very welcome and knew our circumstances. This time we were delighted with the beautifully cooked and presented Fish n Chips x2, washed down with iced water and a lovely pint of beer each.
Morgan, you and your staff are a credit to the group, very well done!
There was also an incident in the Car Park where an elderly driver in an automatic had chosen the wrong gear and crashed into another car. The staff were all very supportive with everyone concerned. It is lovely to see caring people, very well done Morgan and all of your colleagues!
As you can see, I've changed my 2 stars to 5!
To paraphrase Arnie "We'll be back" ;-)

No gluten free options on the menu and a 60 minute wait for food. We went elsewhere!

Lovely pub in a great location. Food is good but a bit disappointed with my vegan burger (which looked more like corned beef!)

Small issue with incorrect meal but very quickly and quietly fixed. I look forward to eating at Waterwitch again soon and being looked after by their excellent staff.

Nice, cozy, atmospheric pub. Delicious food, friendly staff, good parking, quiet picturesque place.

Really friendly staff and eager to help. Service can sometimes be slow, but the staff's bubbly attitude makes up for it.

Excellent service, great food, good value for money. Would recommend you visit.

If you've not booked forget it..all in all staff are really nice..Nice pint!!

We always enjoy the food at this restaurant and it is a lovely atmospheric old building inside with a big garden slopping down to the canal that is beautifulin the summer. I would give 5 stars but the service is sometimes slow. Another reason is that today we went to take advantage of the 'eat out to help out' scheme and they didn't apply the discount so we had to send the bill back to get it corrected, I would assume a genuine mistake but it happened to the table next to us as well and it feels like they are not being very honest.

The pub itself is lovely and the location alongside the Basingstoke Canal is excellent. The large garden is perfect on a hot summers day and the pub is quaint and nicely decorated.

In my opinion, prices for food and drinks are to be expected for the area but I do have to agree with other comments regarding service. I experienced long queues at the bar, a long wait for food and then when something was wrong with my order I was pretty much ignored for a long period of time until I repeatedly complained. Staff eventually sorted problems out but too little too late. Shame.

I tried dropping in for lunch without any reservation. No seat available and no lunch. It looks amazing. There is no such thing as doing anything on impulse. Shame with Covid.

Food and service were amazing. Very friendly staff.

2 year old lambasted for going on the grass unnecessary in my book it's only grass and there was plenty of space

Having been here on many occasions the food has been great quality and size,but when we dined on Sunday 1st September the food was below the standard we had come to expect but as soon as it was brought to the attention of the staff they immediately struck all our meals off our bill and there was 6 of us dining that night so I give the Waterwitch 5* not because the meals served to us that night(because let's face it everyone can have a bad day/night)but the professional way they dealt with it as not all the meals were bad.

Service not good. Drink outside but no food.!! Stupid rules have ruined pubs, especially this one

Avoid if you are disabled. This awful pub had no key for the disabled lavatory for my 92 year old disabled aunt to use. (After much distress we managed to get her in the ladies loo, and her nearly falling), but it s ok because the manager Richard is genuinely sorry. Asked them why told uh someone walked off with it yesterday. Asked why they didn t have a spare, no answer for that.
But it s ok because the manager Richard is genuinely sorry. As far as I know it is illegal for a establishment to open like this if they have no facilities for disabled people. Waited 45 mins for mains longer for sweets, coffee never arrived at all. Will be speaking to head office, and disability group.

Toke my wife for birthday lunch waited a hour to pate that was cold and the main was cold and could not eat people where walking out left right centre really bad

Lunch menu only provided "on request" food very overcooked and tasteless. We eat at chef and brewers across basingstioke and rgis is the worst by a country mile.

Over-rated fish restaurant-----------take your credit card with you, because it is very,very, very expensive and not worth it in my humble opinion.

One chef for a busy lunch time and the burgers were small but tasty

Nicely distanced and enjoyed my first pint at a pub in 4 months

Good food and fast service. One small step is a bit of a challenge for disabled inside the restaurant.

Very nice food, nice seating indoors and out but usually a wait for food

Really friendly staff. Delicious food. Great prices.

Fabulous Food, Great Service & Good Price. . Win, win all round. Thank You for a Lovely Evening.

Really good food. I had a perfectly-cooked blue fillet steak with triple-cooked chips. Great service, great food, great price. Thanks.

It's OK - typical chain pub food fare, nothing to dislike too much nor to write home about.

What a little hidden gem this is! Really tucked away you'd probably never find by chance if youre not local but my oh my is it worth going on a hunt for. Gets very busy when the sun is out. Great choice of beers and food. Food is well cooked, well presented and very tasty. Service was excellent and nice and quick. Prices are what you'd expect for a high end gastro pub.

Nice food, although perhaps a touch expensive. Excellent location with a large green area that backs onto the canal. The staff were excellent and the place didn't feel packed even though it was busy. Recommended.

The staff here are lovely. Nice interior. The quiz on Mondays is great fun, not too difficult and the prizes vs entry money (which is donated to charity) makes it well worth it. Drink selection is great. Convenient to have a car park.