Greetings from the New Forest!
Spring has sprung! Woodlands Lodge has been busy bees in the last 2 months.
Firstly, we finished room 5 and I think it is a real triumph. Nice and bright, clean looking and in the somewhat adventurous colour ‘babouche’ or bright yellow!! It is a happy room and Gary has been busy tidying up the hotel painting doors and corridors so we look fresh and ready for Summer.
Our kitchen team has to be the biggest change in the last 6 weeks. It has literally transformed. Our new head chef the talented Andy Smith has started and already made over the kitchen, with his modern take on British food and he is focussed on the seasonality and keeping all our produce as local as possible. I am so excited for everyone to taste and see his food!! It looks and tastes divine. The afternoon tea menu has also been revamped and now incorporates a wonderful children’s tea as well as the ‘Gentleman’s’ Cream tea that incorporates all the savoury favourites such as pork pies and steak and stilton sandwiches along with the usual sweet treats… makes me hungry just writing about it. In our menu shake up we have been able to redesign our bar menu too… we hope to offer snacks faster to our guests and all day! Next week is the turn of the breakfast to be transformed, and we have some glorious new bowls to put in our granolas, yoghurts and fruit on the continental and we have added Robert’s breakfast favourite Eggs Benedict to the repertoire too…
We also welcome Mark to the position of sous chef, and Declan as an Apprentice join Nick to finish our Kitchen team.
We have not limited change to the kitchen and promoted Gina to front of House Manager- well done Gina, we also wave a very fond goodbye to Charlotte who is leaving us to run a Campsite in France for the Summer!
We had a very successful Mother’s Day and really enjoyed seeing so many happy families- and the first chance we had to showcase Andy. Easter was lovely too with us finally feeling the winter is behind us, and looking forward to get the summer underway and wedding season up and running.
March saw us have our bi annual wedding showcase and the hotel looked absolutely stunning with a bit of help from our lovely supplier friends. We were able to show off the hotel in all its wedding glory.
This week I am starting to embark on our Christmas party and Christmas package. It seems early but we want to be nice and prepared!!
We hope to welcome you to the hotel very soon, as the walks are clearing from Mud and the smell of springtime is upon us. We still have some cracking deals with Dinner, bed and breakfast from £139 per couple.
Best wishes
Take care
Imogene Anglaret
Owner