The Bell - Ticehurst

Great eclectic pub, very good table service. Whitebait and olives delicious. Sadly fish and chips were over cooked, batter too thick and fish was not fresh. Very small portion for lamb rump, no veg and disappointing for the price paid.

I'm sorry to say we were very disappointed with our visit. Two of our party chose whitebait and when it arrived itvwas obvious by the brittle crispy coating tgat it had come straight from a catering pack. Another one of us had the crispy kedgeree which turned out to be something like fishcakes (but with no idenrufiable fish!) made with rice instead of potato and again coated in brittle "breadcrumbs". This was orobabky also from a catering pack. The rump of lamb was very good although slightly spoiled by being served on a base of tomato puree (why?) whilst my husband had dufficulty in tracking down the minute pieces of grey mullet served to him.

The food, service and ambience were all fantastic. This is one of my new favourite places. The pork belly was so tender, and eggs benedict for breakfast was delicious too. Thank you.

Excellent in every way.

Food excellent as was the attentive and friendly waiting team. Only negatives were the portions of dessert were a bit on the small side - pretty presentation but would have appreciated more volume and the menu design was very confusing. Groupings under some sort of weird categorisations that didn't relate to any accepted norms, mixing starters and mains, meaningless descriptions that virtually all required a translation/explanation by the waitress. Minor niggles on what was an excellent lunch (but please sort the menu!)

All delicious

Relaxed good staff and super food.

Good food in a relaxed, quirky enviornment. We stayed in the Pour L'Amour lodge; very comfortable & with the added bonus of a private outside log burner.

Excellent meal with great service.

Sorry to say very disappointed. I had a meal at the bell shortly after it had reopened and the service was terrible and the food mediocre. I gave feedback then, but never got a response, so much for all the blurb on the website. However, given the recent awards we decided to give it a go again, thinking it may have improved. I was out to celebrate an event with two friends. When we got sat down the young female waitress bombarded us with questions about drinks and orders before we had even looked at the menus, so we asked her to give us a few minutes and bring the wine list. She brought this and then disappeared and it took a while to eventually attract her attention to get our order taken. We were intrigued to know what 'lovers chips' were so asked her and she came up with some ridiculous answer about them being a brand, and then seemed very confused if they were bought in or made on the premises. We ordered some chips and two side salads which arrived after we had finished our main courses. The waitress had disappeared again. These were brought by an older Irish guy who was very nice, thought they had been ordered later, but then when we explained they were ordered all at the same time made them complimentary, which was good, the chips were very nice. My crispy kedgeree turned out to be two stodgy rice cakes, tasking mildly of fish, not at all like kedgeree and I would not order these again. The menu could do with being less on the pretention and greater on the reality. The nice Irish guy returned again and gave us complimentary puddings, which was nice and appreciated. Meanwhile they were coping with the fire alarms going off all the time and a flood from one of the up stairs bedroom. The young serving staff are all over the place and could do with a a strong manager overseeing their activities. This was the same as my experience when I originally visited. Nice physical surroundings and outside fantastic garden and landscaping, but can't recommend to eat there.