The Pig – A New Forest Must Visit
Sometimes you just want to go somewhere really special. Somewhere different, somewhere you can relax and eat wonderful food and drink good wine. Every now and then you come across such a place that you will go back to time and time again and tell all your friends to go to too. One of those places for me is The Pig Hotel in the New Forest. (An hour an half by train from London Waterloo)
It’s a tranquil Country House beautifully decorated and with rustic open fire places, well worn leather arm chairs and rows and rows of Hunter wellies lined up for the guests to go walking in. You can dine, stay the night or treat yourself to a spa treatment in the Potting Shed. I’m not kidding, they’ve converted a potting shed into the most unusual and charming treatment room you’ve ever been massaged in that you get to by crossing a path over the pond.
If you are there to dine, which I highly recommend you do, then food for their restaurant is mainly sourced from within their immaculate walled garden. An abundance of neatly sprouting lines of vegetables bursts from the soil, reminding me of Mr McGregors Garden in The Tail of Peter Rabbit. Whatever they can’t source from the garden comes from no more than 25 miles away. The gardening team are more than happy to talk to you about what’s growing and how they manage it all.
When we headed to the restaurant the floor tiles in the dining conservatory actually made me gasp a little bit when we first walked in, they are an eclectic mix of colours and patterns. I’ve never seen a floor like it in the UK before, it would be well suited to a Moroccan Riad. The Conservatory itself is large, attractive, bright and welcoming and the tables are mismatched but work brilliantly. Even the cutlery and condiments are a mix of bone handle silverwear and french style butter dishes. My husband and I both went for the Pork Belly Salad (mine starter size, his main!) we added amazingly chunky triple cooked chips. It was so good that my husband and I often now stop to say ”You know what I really fancy right now, that salad we had at The Pig”. The restaurant was also very family friendly and the staff accomodating of our baby girl, bringing out highchair etc and making faces at her.
The bedrooms I have not yet had the pleasure of staying in but I have it on my bucket list. The website boasts that they have ‘assorted furnishings, great beds oversized showers, ‘larders’ stocked with snacks and nespresso machines’ and you would be spoilt with the view as the hotel is right in the middle of the grounds so you would be surrounded with either the forest or the garden. I love the sounds of the choices of rooms, The Hen House, The Pig Sty or the Dog House!
If you are looking for somewhere new to try for a special weekend away then I highly recommend you have a look at The Pig.
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