The Windmill

Went here with wife and 1 yr old. Beautiful location in the sun. A few 'wise' men in a jazz / blues combo greeted us with great music. Fairly busy so had to wait to take order. Food OK - nothing special. Views very relaxing though

Arrived for a very special occasion. Despite having booked, no table had been set up for our party. After pushing 2 tables together, we then waited over an hour for starters. One of which was still frozen in the middle and therefore inedible. The main then arrived half an hour later. The meals weren't staved together, on cold plates and most meals were cold themselves. Well over seasoned and overlooked meat and veg - definitely not worth the wait or the extortionate price! Really poor customer service - not shown to our table, no coats being taken, generally slow on ordering and not the most polite waitresses we've ever encountered that's for sure. Altogether we waited over 2 hours for our meal and really had nothing good to say about the food at all. Very very poor.

Come for the view, don't stay for the food.
We had a party of 11 booked to arrive at 1.
it was an hour and ten minutes before our starters arrived, one of which had not been defrosted properly let alone cooked thoroughly and another twenty five before our mains arrived, all of which were disappointing.
we had four orders of leg of lamb with cold roast potatoes. Three pasta dishes that were too salty. One duck that was cooked to the point of being solid.
I would like to be able to say the service was terrible but it wasn't even that good.

We booked a table for 11, when we arrived no tables had been set up for us so we had to move the tables ourselves. We then waited (in a sauna, thanks to the open fire - in July!) for almost two hours for terrible, mostly overbooked food including cold, reheated roast potatoes; incinerated duck; salty tortellini; and over cooked cabbage.

The restaurant manager was rude, flustered and defensive.

The gentleman playing drums in the corner and the views were a very slim silver lining.

I hadn't read the reviews prior to booking a table, I am sad to say the recent poor feedback is entirely warranted. We waited over 1.25 hours for food, which was made worse by the terrible service from the manager who can only be described as rude and defensive. We eventually left, having not received any meals. The worst experience I've ever had in a restaurant.

Great if you are not in a hurry.
The welcome and service was very warm, friendly and couldn't do enough for us. The food was OK with the only criticism was too salty, my wife said this about her roast and my plate was obviously sprinkled with rock salt. The views stunning even on a cloudy day like today.
Service was slow. No problem if you are not on a time limit but we got there at 12:45 and needed to be away by 3:30 but had to chase up our deserts and gulped them down quickly.

Would we go there again ? It is very much out of our way but if we are in the area then yes, most definitely if we had no other commitments.

Waited one and a half hours with an empty table. Then, when the chicken arrived it smelt of fish, it didn't taste or smell fresh at all. The other food items were Ok, but after the first hour we were told that one of the dishes we had ordered was unavailable. Service was nice, but slow, as the menu was only given to us half an hour after arriving. However, The Windmill had a great view and was good for drinks.

It feels sad to be so harsh - this is someone’s business and job but it also is not fair that I can only assume each day, a small collection of walkers stumble in here looking for a much needed lunch or refreshment having been exploring the wonderful surrounding area.

It’s like they’ve given up. Strange decor, a computer on a dining table, broken toilets, no hand towels or dryers.

Then there’s the wait. What you’ll read on other reviews is true. Like me, you’ll give them the benefit of the doubt when reading - “it must have been a bad day” or, “it can’t possibly be that long a wait - we’re the only people here”. What you’ll read on the other reviews is true. We waited 90 minutes for our mains.

The quality of the food is also pretty bad. Not completely awful, but definitely frozen and definitely not worth the inflated price you pay, presumably to keep the place alive. Whilst you eat, because you’ve exhausted all conversation during the wait, at least you can discuss how it’s actually possible for a near-empty restaurant to take longer to bring out these substandard meals in a longer time it would take than to make them yourself, from scratch. Did they order in with Deliveroo and plate up? Did they mash the potato using a knife and fork? Did they forge the plates themselves? Oh no, that seems unlikely unless they made the plate with a chip in it to start.

£35 for 2 people - burger and lukewarm saltiest-chips-in-the-world and sausages and mash, again both frozen including £2.50 per glass of BLACKCURRANT SQUASH! The burger looks ok, but trust me, looks can be deceiving. I guess the only reason the chef doesn’t realise it’s so awful is plates must be always sent back empty because people are so famished.

As many others before me have said, “it’s a shame because it could be so much better” - it is indeed in a lovely location, but so are hundreds of Wetherspoons. I’m not proud of completely bashing the entire experience of an establishment, but yesterday, I was conscience-stricken. When we were finished, we watched two ladies walk in. Did we tell them to turn around and run? Of course we didn’t, but hopefully this review does deter at least one other person who’ll never thank me for it, but at least I’ll sleep better, and eat better tonight.