Review: Slug and Lettuce, Fareham

Imagine the scene. You’re walking around Fareham with two small children in tow. You’ve parked for free in a well known supermarket car park and got your shopping, you’ve done your parental duty and gone to the library, where you’ve appreciated that there are free crafts laid on, and when you walk out just after 11.30am a chorus of ‘I’m hungry’ strikes up.

Being an adult, you sometimes forget the body clock of children, and the weird way that they could eat a piled-high plate of spaghetti Bolognese at 11am. And so you do your calculations… ‘yep, we could go home, but then again I’ve been meaning to see what the food is like in the Slug and Lettuce for a while… and we’ve (just about) got enough time on the car park clock. Let’s do it’.

To be honest, part of the reason was because the Slug and Lettuce is directly opposite the shopping centre so it was easy. Laziness, not real gastronomic curiosity.

We walked inside, and asked the (lovely, friendly and efficient) bloke behind the bar whether there was a children’s menu. He looked at me in a slightly funny way, smiled and said ‘oh yes’ and handed it over. We walked into the old church section (if you’ve been, you’ll know) and the reason for his wry smile was clear.

It was packed.

With families with under-nines. Honestly, on most of the tables.

And a closer examination of the menu explained why – a meal, drink and pudding for a child for a fiver. No wonder. The only thing to ask is ‘why has nobody told me this before?!?’

Now, a quick interlude: The Dish Detective previously has sung the praises of West Street’s indies – The Garden Shed Cafe, CrumbleJack, Stones, the Vintage Tea Room, Cackleberrys and so on. We continue to do so and love them with a passion, along with all the small traders on that cherished stretch. Please visit them. Love them and help them.

But we have to speak as we find, and my word we were pleasantly surprised by the Slug and Lettuce.

Joining the other families, for the children we chose a burger and chips and a sausage and chips. One with a pouch of jelly for pudding, the other with a build-it-yourself sundae (as recommended from behind the bar) which saw some ice cream supplied with strawberry pieces, marshmallows and jelly tots for the child to create their own pudding. Fun. The meals aren’t stunning but are as good as elsewhere, and are provided with minimum of fuss. And three-year-olds just need feeding, for all our sakes.

I went for an S&L burger (£13.95). It came with nduja pork, cheese, bacon and mushrooms. It was very greasy but with those ingredients I’d be worried if it wasn’t; for a chain pub it was a very decent effort at a burger and the chips passed muster too.

We’re clearly not going to come out of here claiming that a Slug and Lettuce meal will change your life, but for tasty value and ease we were very happy. We’d always associated the brand with blokes in shirts and ladies in short skirts – now our eyes have been opened. Truly it has different personas for night and day. We’re surprised and impressed.

Slug and Lettuce, West Street, Fareham

Food 3

Value 5

Ambience 3

Child-friendly 5