Fran (22 May 2010)

We were completely bowled-over by this restaurant! We don't know Bournemouth at all, and only found this perfectly ordinary-looking hotel restaurant after we found that it had good reviews online. When we arrived we had a leisurely drink in the bar, beautiful red wine before going through to the restaurant when we were ready. The staff were all great, and paced the evening very well, never letting us feel either hurried or ignored.

The food was really special, I had a medium-rare steak, which was cooked to perfection and melted in the mouth, with no stringiness or fat. The steak was served with chips, peppercorn sauce, and seasonal vegetables. The vegetables were tender, the sauce was delicious, and the chips were delightful, because instead of loads of ordinary chips there were four giant ones! Everything was cooked perfectly, and there was nothing included just to bulk up the meal; everything that was there was just enough, and we didn't feel stuffed. We then shared a cheese board, which was again delicious, with three types of cheeses accompanied by various biscuits and some pickle, we once again weren't unnecessarily overloaded. There was a real quality in everything that was there.

What surprised us the most was getting the bill and finding out that one of the best meals we'd had, didn't come at a prohibitively high price - about £30 each for a main, shared dessert, two glasses of wine and a cup of coffee - fantastic! Basically, I wish I had a restaurant like this at my door-step; we had such a superb night.

Felicity Roe (28 September 2009)

My husband and I recently went for a meal at Hardy's. It’s very old worldly and slightly frayed around the edges, but don't be misled by that and miss out on a wonderful meal. The food was excellent! We both had the fillet steak, omitting the foie gras, with seasonal vegetables, all cooked to perfection, and actually we both found it to be faultless. Then we had the cheese platter, local selected cheeses, which again was lovely. We will definitely eat there again and would also recommend Hardy's.