Weddings at The Mill

We are now licensed to hold civil wedding ceremonies!!

All our weddings and civil partnerships at the Mill are individual and unique. Your own personal wedding planner will spend as much time as necessary with you to make sure everything is perfect. Because we are small and welcoming we would like you and your guests to feel the Hotel is more like your home.

For the reception we can accomodate as few as 10 people in our intimate private dining room, up to 60 guests in the restaurant or a maximum of 125 in a marquee of your choice.

We don't have a wedding pack as such but do offer a pricing structure to make it easier for everybody

(Please click on on link below)

Wedding Brochure

The Mill hosts a range of special events throughout the year, from the fabulous New Years Eve Party,
Gourmet evenings, Casino Night and Tribute Nights, please call or email for details.

Photo's by: Barry Whitcher

Take advantage of the wonderful setting and facilities at The Mill for your
special event and sample the fabulous food and fine wines.

Keep an eye on this page or the local press for information on specific events.

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Future Events - Details to Follow

Rat Pack Evening - TBC

Frank Sinatra Evening - TBC

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Christmas Time at The Mill

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For the smokers amongst you we have a lovely new smoking area with a heater on the patio
with cushions – cosy!! – and we’ve also extended our terrace area to create even more
tables for alfresco dining.

The Mill Newsletter

 

The best thank you letter ever!!!

Dear Liz and entire team,

Just to thank and congratulate you.

We (my partner and I) are London-based and only get down to the New Forest occasionally. We've enjoyed quite a few good eating places in the area - from Chewton Glen to The Forest Tea Room in Burley - but you seem to have an astonishingly strong combination of the right food, setting and staff; and also provide good value for money.

We've been twice in recent memory: a while back when family and friends all met up for Sunday lunch - and we enjoyed the private dining room (and some of our party stayed on for a night - which they also enjoyed), and more recently in January 2009 when just the two of us came
for a Saturday evening meal.

Simple praise is easy; but detail and analysis are more difficult - so I'll try the latter.

Clearly the food is extremely good. The quality of ingredients just shines through - many restaurants offer a warm salad of chicken breast or a smoked salmon roulade, or a roast duck dish, but yours were all exceptional. And even with excellent ingredients it's still simple to botch the cooking - but on the whole yours has been faultless. Tiny touches make the difference between a good and an excellent meal - home made bread, a smear of good balsamic, an apple glaze on roast duck, a dessert doubling as early-cubist art.

Venison pate is almost de rigeur in the New Forest but I've not tasted better than yours. The red mullet was seriously good - crisp skin, yet succulent, tasty flesh: fresh fish and freshly prepared - I
think it had been rushed from pan to table with appropriate haste. Overall the combination of flavours s a particularly good act.

And I need to add that you have faced stern critiques in many quarters - one of our party was a professional cook and another is a princess. And me - I'm a foodie.

My feeling is that you have sought a menu to suit many tastes. In our larger and mixed party of various ages and tastes; one of us considers steak to be spoilt by the addition of a sauce (well perhaps with the exception of Heinz tomato) and wants it well cooked, whereas I'm hardly impressed by anything with less than a five exotic ingredients that few others have heard of (and I'm closer to Clarissa Dickson-Wright when she said 'I like my steak undercooked such that a good vet could probably bring it round'). Whilst one of our group considers good farmhouse cheddar the only cheese of merit, another is impressed only by cheeses we have not tried - and the more exotic the
better - but not too strong. And whilst one of us likes best roast beef and veg, with 'proper' gravy and an extra Yorkshire pudding (oh yes indeed: thank you - somebody did that: a masterful piece of mind-reading), another wants a delicate portion of organic nouvelle cuisine steamed fish.

And we really noticed the influence of local produce - from cheese to fish to game - that was wonderful, otherwise why travel from suburban London to the New Forest. And a good influence of seasonable availability as well - we do have foods appropriate for the season - when those ingredients are at their best - so we should celebrate and take advantage of that, as you are doing. I assume you have cultivated and consulted a range of good local suppliers - which I urge you to
continue doing as much as you can. So please do keep up that overall balance - catering for everyone from the traditionalists to the post-modernists.

The setting is probably the most difficult thing to change, but you've certainly made the very most of that. The exterior was wonderful for a pre-prandial stroll and the interior has a similar feel of succeeding to be most things to most people - not too twee/traditional/chintzy but also not too modern/severe/stark. The ambience was right - we could have a conversation even when it was full.
You are obviously currently (January 2009) in the throes of various works - at least it's the right time of year for that anyway, so good luck (and don't re-read 'A Year in Provence' yet). We loved the new
sculptural works - but felt they weren't too 'in our face'. And it's a good balance for men and women, and between young and old - not a pure dark wood gentleman's club, but not just an airy eau-de-nil space for ladies-who-lunch.

Then there's the staff - clearly another really fabulous asset, in the kitchen, in the front of house and beyond. The balance between a false-bonhomie ('have a good day') and an almost superior detachment is difficult. However your staff are friendly (but not in a false way) and genuinely seem interested (I could do that for 10 minutes with a good table of customers - but not all night, and certainly not with the awkward squad).

At the peak of busy on Saturday night the whole system worked smoothly - moving at a good pace at the limit of capacity, coordinated from kitchen to table; and then when things were a bit easier staff found time to chat - to those customers who wanted to chat.

Were staff fazed when part of our party were late? Were staff fazed when someone ordered a starter as a dessert? You know the answer.

The wines are also well chosen - there were some familiar names and some exotica we hadn't tried - and we had some advice when we needed it, and I suspect an honest opinion when required.

So there's clearly a difficult balancing act. But it's obviously working well - a full house on a January night with warnings of gales, and that's in a recession. And looking around the other day we saw a range of diners, all of whom seemed to be being treated in the appropriate manner - a triumph of your approach to the diversity of your customers.

Oh, of course, and a couple of eccentric academic-types down from London enjoying the food and wine tremendously, discussing and analysing, and looking around at the other customers, and engaging with the staff now and again.

Actually, I do have one complaint: you are about 100 miles further away from our home than would be ideal. And if you're not willing to change that, then please may we book a table around xmas 2020 - when we will be retiring and quite possibly looking for a home closer to The Mill at Gordleton.

I'm looking forward to visiting you again.

Regards, Stephen

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