Royal Oak at Fritham

If you could imagine your perfect pub, in a perfect setting, with perfect food, perfect beer, and perfect company, then you have probably just thought about The Royal Oak.
It was a little like something out of a really nice dream. Idyllic forest clearing houses thatched ale house full of pork pies, pâté, and real ale served directly from the barrel. Wild horses roam around you, and live jazz floats on the breeze why can’t all pubs be like this?!

Wow — what a great pub! In the tiny village of Fritham, just over the Dorset-​Hampshire border, in the New Forest. The surrounding area is gorgeous, a lake with duckies and which used to supply water to the gunpowder works (long since closed) and woods with many wild New Forest ponies (they don’t like to be stroked), cows with horns wandering round and even saw a massive owl, twit-​twooing, and a woodpecker. Unspoiled, real English countryside.
And now to the pub a little place, with a small field with picnic tables outside, looking over meadows and woods. Delightful. Good range of ales, drawn straight from the barrel. The food is outstanding — not a huge range and they don’t do sandwiches or chips. But why would you want that when they offer a selection of ploughmans, all with the finest, local ingredients. I had the pâté ploughmans — two good helpings of their homemade pâté, home-​pickled onion, fresh salad, crusty roll, a mini jar of their own, homemade chutney it was just delicious. My companion went for their homemade pork pie, which also came with salad and coleslaw and chutney, and was gorgeous — crumbly pastry, a good jelly and firm meat. Yum! Apparently they don’t sell tea. But if you’re in a pub, I have no idea why you would want a cup of tea, so no marks off for that!
Oh, and they also had a live jazz band playing in a small marquee they had put up. Can’t guarantee they will be there everytime though!
Cannot recommend highly enough.