The Best Restaurants in Gillingham, Dorset, United Kingdom (2025)

Thoroughly enjoyed our visit to the Dog House. Visited here a few days before Christmas with our next door neighbours for something to eat and a few drinks. Loved the decor and ambience of the establishment. Its an olde world feel to the place but with modern twist. Staff very welcoming and friendly whilst being unobtrusive. The food was so good and was served promptly too. Can't recommend this place enough and ŵe will definitely be back. Give it a try, you will not be disappointed.

’The Dog house’ A local pub that has got it so right! Simple ‘locally sourced’ fresh food cooked as you order!!! (Large Fire oven cooked) and ALL healthy and tasty! Yes! Yes! Yes! ‘IF’ Your like hubby and I and Love Fresh local produce, cooked on a rather large fire oven/grill ‘bespoke handmade’ and using natural fresh herbs plus Spices and fresh salad and veg! Then try ‘The Dog House’ Dorset,in Gill ! Going to go again Sat with close friends coming for the day (tried it out last night beforehand) and will go again with close friends in Mere and another friend Trudie Maidment , yes Trudie it’s lovely we must go soon! So many dishes you all share at the table as each dish comes out as freshly cooked. Lovely to see your working here Hayley Warren (nice surprise! and for serving last night) See you all again Saturday lunch time 💕😋

Delicious food, fabulous service and a lovely atmosphere. The food is cooked over fire and is superb - I had the bavette steak which was cooked to perfection. We had a selection of sides and the Hisbi cabbage is highly recommended. With fire cooking the food is cooked to temperature not to time so all the main courses don’t arrive at the same time - not a problem just keep nibbling on the lovely side dishes. Will be back!!

Great Roast dinner, lovely welcome for my friend and my dog. Great atmosphere and other guests appeared to also be enjoying the atmosphere as much as we did.

Overall is good, the quality it's top as the price and service. Lovely place with good atmosphere. If you're on rush, don't go, take your time and enjoy the food.

Really nice experience. The decor inside was very appealing and comfortable. Went for the 3 course set menu and the food was very well presented and had a lot of flavour. Waiters/waitresses polite and attentive. Will recommend to friends/family.

Oh my! ♥ What a magical experience visiting The Clockspire was. Where do I begin to describe the care and detail oozing from both the staff and the food, it truly is clear to see, even the toilet hand towels were folded beautifully! We decided to opt for an expensive treat due to a special birthday, but the restaurant also offers a very affordable day menu, so I would recommend for both a stunning meal out and for celebrating occasions.

Fantastic food! Really delicious. We will definitely return on our next trip to the area. The staff are lovely and welcoming, and we felt at ease for the whole visit.

This delightful cafe was recommended by another local retailer that we came to visit specifically. What a super recommendation it was. A very pleasant, light airy cafe selling homemade cakes and sandwiches. A very good cup of tea to accompany the cake too. What more could you ask for the start of a week off. Thoroughly recommend it

It is great to see a proper cafe in Gillingham with a delicious cake (pretzel brownie, cherry brownie). The coffee is really good, the staff are lovely and friendly. A wonderful place to spend time with friends or family. So pleased Gillingham has this cafe! Very reasonable prices for cake!

Love this coffee shop. Comfortable and relaxed atmosphere. Great coffee and cakes. The almond croissant was delicious. Friendly service, the perfect place for coffee and a natter.

Felt very welcome in a relaxed seating area with lots of plants and a rustic partition which was good to look at, the sticky toffee biscoff slice was so yummy I wanted another so bought more to take home.

Lovely breakfast and initial service let down sadly when we asked for additional hot drinks to be told by the young man waiter it would take ages to make them so we didn’t bother. Been a while since we’ve been here and may be a while until we come back again after today sadly.

It's a nice clean cafe with a difference. It's full of motorbikes, but this doesn't stop a wide spectrum of people using it, from senior ladies having brunch to bikers all getting on well together, the service and food is great aswell. Fully enjoyed my stop there.

Lovely breakfast. I'm no food snob but you can tell quality ingredients in a fry-up. My photo might look a bit tomato heavy (yum) but I asked to swap out the mushrooms (yuk) which was no problem. Good service and very friendly staff. Lots of interesting bikes to look at too.

Mixed experience at The Old Brewery. The service was very good, quick and friendly and the coffee was good although the large Americano seemed to be just a single shot with extra water rather than 2 shots (it wasn’t very strong). The Brewery breakfast tasted really good for something which came too quickly to have been cooked to order and unfortunately this was evident with the eggs in particular which looked like they had been sitting under heat lamps for a while. Overall the quality of the food was very good just a shame it wasn’t cooked to order.

Every visit we have has been fantastic. It's our favourite place to go and let our son and his friends burn some energy. It stands out from the rest of the soft plays etc (which none of us are fans of). Honestly couldn't find fault, until today. Booked a few spaces for my son and his friends as it's his birthday, planned on getting them all lunch. Very disappointed that they've stopped serving food (and alcohol!). There's absolutely NO warning on social media, the website, booking pages or email confirmations that they're not serving food. I checked, my husband checked, my friend checked - we can't see anything. Had I known that, I wouldn't have booked, or at least brought packed lunches for the kids to have when they got home, if I'd have known after I'd booked it. I was on the verge of tears but kept being reassured by the children's parents that it was fine and not to worry. We won't stop coming here, but they really need to put something up about not serving food anymore.

Very good value, kids loved it. Shame there was no food/cafe the day we went though.

We went to this soft play for our little girl birthday it is a very nice and a great place to entertain the kids highly recommend and everything is very reasonably priced will return again

Excellent lunch with different options and not your usual choices either. They do a set menu with 2 or 3 courses as an option. I chose off the normal menu and had aubergine stuffed with a side of fries very good portion and very flavoursome. The other person did the same and had a fishcake, which was much enjoyed. We shared a pudding of poached figs, which again was delicious. Would recommend it and I will return

Called in for lunch. Good set menu, friendly service. Good value. Slightly cramped tables. Very popular even on a Tuesday lunchtime

Brilliant food, lovely staff. We are lucky enough to be local and hired all the rooms for family and friends at our wedding. All were happy and loved the food!

We booked the private dining room for a Reunion. So impressed. Great food, lovely public rooms, impeccable friendly service. And very reasonable price.

We had a lovely one night stay at this independent hotel. The hotel is very quirky and really well thought out with lovely touches all around. I took my 2 children and they loved playing in the big garden and our room was very spacious with a huge bed and double sofa bed. The bar is really cosy and the food at dinner and breakfast was really lovely. All the staff were very welcoming and the resident cat was a huge hit with my daughters. The location was perfect for us, just a 5 minute drive to Sherborne but in a quiet village location. Would definitely recommend this hotel and would love to stay again.

This hotel is absolutely stunning! The pictures do not do it justice. The hotel is charming, beautiful, unique, vintage and quirky. There is lots to see around the hotel and it was beautifully decorated for Christmas. We booked for the festive getaway deal which was an amazing price for all it included, we upgraded our room prior to arriving and on arrival got told we were upgraded again for free which was a wonderful surprise. Our room was absolutely beautiful! The hotel was very peaceful and the food and drinks were delicious. Our room and the hotel was very clean. We absolutely love the friendly, cute hotel cat Neptune!! Breakfast didn't come with all items included on the menu (we didn't get any potatoes, mushrooms or tomatoes like stated) they also hadn't had their delivery of bacon so breakfast seemed a little chaotic, but other than that everything was perfect, staff were friendly and attentive and we absolutely cannot wait to come back and stay here again! I highly recommend this hotel, really beautiful and peaceful and great value for money.

Great food and service. I will definitely go again. The sticky toffee pudding was incredible. Prices are fair, especially considering everywhere costs more to eat out nowadays.

We had a lovely dinner last night ! Cheesecake is absolutely amazing ! Thank you for the lovely hospitality. We will definitely be back for a meal again. We will pop in as normal for a couple of beers in the meantime. Cheers

We found this place on Google maps trying to find somewhere for lunch, we were not disappointed. It's a very pretty looking place and the staff were very friendly. The food was amazing, we didn't leave anything on our plates. Would 10/10 recommend 👌

We had a really Lovely meal here. The staff were so attentive and really went out of their way to check ingredients for a food intolerance. The food we had tasted amazing and our Waitress checked on us to ensure that we enjoyed our meal. I cannot recommend this place enough. Really good food, Amazing atmosphere and staff who really care about the quality of the food they serve.

The new owners are lovely and the quality of the food has improved massively since they took over. I had haddock last week which was the best haddock I'd had for a very long time and the pineapple fritters are to die for. The chips are really very good too and while you wait they give you a few chips to keep you going. I would say it's possibly the best chippy in the area now.

Friendly staff when we walked in especially Zena 😊 bright and clean ordered our food and given some chips to nibble on while we waited cash only which is refreshing and the food was very good and generous portions

Great man gave us extra chips and samples I recommend this amazing fish and chip shop to everyone 💗😁😁😁😁

We ordered for delivery tonight for the first time (02/11/24) firstly we placed our order by phone my wife spoke to a really polite and helpful gentleman and the food was delivered in good time and was absolutely delicious ! This could be a new favourite for us. We had chicken Shawarma with rice and bread and chips on the side. I should have ordered the tzatziki to go with it but there’s always next time. Well done guys

This popup restaurant serves good food at a reasonable price: only open Friday and Saturday evening. It's run by just two people so don't expect perfect service, you will need to be patient, but it's worth it. The church hall is not the ideal ambience but I guess it keeps the costs to be kept down. If you want to try Syrian cuisine at home why not use the take out service. For the price it's good. Only soft drinks served in cans.

Ordered takeout as a birthday meal for six people to eat at home. As someone who has never eaten Syrian cuisine and often has a hard time with food I am unfamiliar with I was anxious to try but everything was so delicious I needn’t have worried. I asked for a couple of changes to my order and the person serving us was extremely helpful and understanding and didn’t make me feel silly for asking loads of questions and making changes. He also helped me to decide what to eat by showing me photos of previously cooked dishes on his phone of what each dish looks like. He then labelled my box so that we knew which one was mine. I can confirm that all of this food is cooked from scratch as the kitchen was in plain view of where we were sat waiting and we could see it being made and raw ingredients being taken out of boxes etc. The shawarma was seasoned really well, heavy in flavour but not too spicy (I am quite sensitive to spice and could really appreciate the way this was made). The garlic bread was nice, prepared in house and cut into adorable little heart shapes. Chips were also good and they were happy to provide some sachets of ketchup for me even though I would imagine it’s not a common condiment in Syrian culture. We also got a few dishes to share between the group, including one of each of the desserts which were both absolutely gorgeous. While we were waiting I put my phone on charge as it was on 2%, I then forgot it when we left and didn’t realise until we had gotten home. I called the number attached to this listing and they said I could come back and get it, staying open later especially for me to go and pick it up. Super sweet of them and I’m really grateful they were so kind as to wait for me. Payment is cash only but there was an atm just down the road so we went and got some money out while they cooked our food and there were no issues with this. I would assume this is a very small operation run by a local family, they were very sweet and happy to help with anything we needed. It was nice to know we were supporting a local vendor. I would highly recommend Gillingham Syrian Cuisine and will no doubt be ordering from them again. Thank you!

We had a great meal yesterday evening. The owner and his wife were very friendly. The food was excellent (and also so nicely presented). Very good quality, good portions and reasonably priced. Highly recommend the tabbouleh, hummus and halawa.