The Spotted Dog - Tonbridge

First time here and its only 8 minutes from my house and I will definitely be returning. Welcome was warm, casual and relaxed. All the waiting staff worked really well together, pretty seamless service. Pints of Guiness zero a bonus and the lamb shoulder was cooked to perfection. Only gripe was that I prefer a few more roasties and the veg to be piping hot on arrival but all in all a fantastic sunday lunch. Gravy was great too. Highly reccomend this place especially for the two beautiful HUGE pub dogs. So friendly and cuddly. A brilliant find.

Visited with husband, lovely service & great big meal. Very cosy. Fire is lit. Would love to visit at night

Beautiful little pub with gorgeous settings. The staff are friendly and accommodating. The pub had autumnal decorations which I thought was such a nice touch (I’d love to see this pub at Christmas time). The manger greeted us with such warmth and the staff looked after us so well. They helped accommodate my family of 12 come in for a Sunday lunch with ease and comfort. The platters were delicious! Very well cooked meats and fed the family well! (We shared two between us which felt like plenty). Worth the trip from London! Would love to come back to sit by the fire soon

Great pub. Stayed overnight in our camper and enjoyed food and drinks, and lovely dogs 🐕 The pub has beautiful outside spaces and an incredible view. We loved it.

Fabulous old Pub, brought back to life with enthusiasm and hard work by Lawrence, Danny and the dedicated team from Bowes hospitality. Wings were smokey, pork ribs tender add the grilled veg, tater tots and chips and it’s the dog bollocks. 👍😎

We were looking for a lovely quiet weekend lunch meal and we we got that and so much more. We arrived at the start of lunch service and had a peaceful spot in the back garden. The staff were incredible, super friendly and attentive. The food was amazing, we had the sharing plate and were blown away, the food was delicious, there was so much, it was great value and we ended up taking half of it home! My only niggle is that there was no mention that there would be a service charge added at the end, it would be nice to have this written on the menu so you can budget if needed. We will absolutely be back! Loved it and would highly recommend!

Really friendly staff , really nice pulled pork and brisket which is smoked in house , all washed down with a pint of Harvey’s. The price for it all was really reasonable too . Highly recommend to all who like Sunday roasts like I do

We pre booked - highly recommend booking as it looks like it gets very busy. We have a very nervous dog and the staff were so helpful in finding us a table slightly away from others so he could hide underneath (Maverick is very grateful) 🐾 The food -my goodness it was absolutely amazing. We ordered the meaty one sharer and honestly it was fantastic. Cooked to perfection and so tasty. There was a lot of food - so much so we couldn't finish it (unusual for my husband 🫣) Such a lovely, welcoming pub with great staff, great food and we will definitely return (requesting that same table!) Highly recommend 👌

An incredible 1520s pub situated atop a hill with even more incredible views. So nice we went twice, once for cottage pie and ribs and the next day for the most incredible roast platter for 5 I’ve ever had. Staff are super helpful and they have a great selection of beers on tap. Beware, coming with strollers, the pub has steps and low ceilings with narrow passages. It’s part of the charm and we managed but keep it in mind! Reservations recommended for the platters.

+1

First time visiting and what a lovely experience we had. Very friendly, happy and lovely welcoming staff, customer service throughout could not fault. Also cannot forget the 2 friendly giants who seem such very well behaved pub dogs. The food was amazing, very tasty full of flavours and decent size plates. Could not fault and we will defiantly be back!

Cosy 16th century pub with an American smokehouse menu! What a combo 😍 you’re really in for a treat with this alternative menu in the setting of an old, English pub. If you love an old pub, gorgeous views of Kent from the back beer garden, a roaring fireplace, and hearty bbq, this spot is for you. Would recommend completing a walk around Penshurst first to build up an appetite (our favourite was the cottage pie). Muddy boots and furry friends seem to be very welcomed here.

+5

One of the best roasts in Kent! Unbelievable flavour!!

Lovely views, tasty food and great service... what more could you want? Made a last minute reservation for mother's day and the staff accommodated us in the most pleasant way. Ordered the roast leg of lamb which was really good. The pub is dog friendly and the setting is cozy for the cold winter evenings. Will definitely be back.

Second time now. Another perfect service. Booked a few months back for mums birthday and requested a table next to the fire. Was all setup and ready for us. Pie night this evening, fantastic home cooking, staff so welcoming. If you want the full Kent pub experience, I fully recommend.

Went on a weekend lunchtime in glorious sun and sat outside at the back on the well designed tiered seating. We knew the new owner from when he owned The Leicester Arms. He is focussing this time on slow cooked BBQ meats in the smoker. Wow, has he got that right! Beef brisket was tender and the flavour was exquisite, as were the meaty pork ribs. The cowboy beans are a meal in their own right, in unctuous sauce with chorizo slices. Chips and red cabbage slaw also perfect. Had to take the smoked chicken wings home with us as we were stuffed! Laurence and his staff are friendly and attentive. Love the massive dogsbies. Everything was wonderful and can’t recommend enough.

Lovely pub. Didn’t get food as we’d eaten already but it smells good!

Warm welcome plus great food and drink at this historic pub. Wonderful views from the garden are a bonus.

Really enjoyed visiting this 15th century pub. It was a perfect spot to finish after our country walk. We sat in a cosy warm corner of the pub with its low ceilings and old walls. There was also an open fire roaring away to keep the place warm. The food was fantastic and the staff were friendly.

Great food, had a sharing plater. Really liked the variety of meats, very well cooked and very tasty. I wasn’t a fan of the beans or coleslaw though, I would consider both to be niche and random flavour additions

We came for lunch today with our fluffy dog only to greeted by two even bigger, fluffier dogs! This is now my favourite pub, we were greeted like old friends, completely dog friendly and the food was excellent. Coming back this weekend! 🥰

We had the most amazing English pub experience! Big dogs and Guiness by the fire. The staff is very friendly and welcoming. Great music and atmosphere. Will definitely be coming back.

The warmest of welcomes, amazing views from the terraces and incredible meat platter and sides! Proper smokehouse offerings in a beautiful rural setting All staff were friendly and accommodating. Couldn't have been better. Highly recommend and will definitely be coming here again.

We had a lovely meal at The Spotted Dog in Penshurst today.. we had a short wait for our table, as the pub was very busy when we got there! It's always a good sign. Lots of seating outside, and a fantastic view out the back. Parking is available across the road from the pub. The food was really good, we had a bit of a wait between courses, but again it was busy. Really old, beautiful pub, full of character. Well worth a visit.

+6

Been following The Spotted Dog in Instagram for quite a while and an opportunity came up to visit and so glad we did. We we're made to feel extremely welcome from the outset. A nice pint of Guinness was on offer along with a sharing platter. All the meat was very well cooked and presented. A dessert was also had but to be honest we were already full but I couldn't resist home made pumpkin pie! We thoroughly enjoyed our meal, chats with the bar staff and sitting by the fire but unfortunately left feeling pressured. I went to pay the bill and was told a 12.5% service charge is to be added. Now seeing as we we're the only people in at that time I was taken aback. I asked if it was compulsory, and it wasn't so I got it removed and paid. That is where the atmosphere lost a star I'm afraid

Very nice pub with a wide range of food

Very good. Bit keen on upselling but can't blame them for trying. We had good value platters

I visited the Spotted Dog pub last weekend, some allowances are in order due to the busy nature of the weekend. Me and my family had visited in previous years when it was still serving a traditional pub platter. Naturally, locals will reject change, especially when it comes to menu changes around a culturally British pub, but my review will be as objective as possible as it is the pub owner's property and they are entitled to change the menu and theme. Objectively, the pub is now more of an American-styled joint with pulled pork, spicy American burgers, seafood platters etc... and no longer serves British pub grub. My pros - The food was reasonably tasty, well portioned, arrived reasonably timely (for a bank holiday), the atmosphere was good, money had been spent to refurbish furniture and it was clean. My critisms - The way you order food we could not order food at the bar itself. It was unfair to force waiters to come to the table as there was no way to let them know you had arrived and we had to repeatably go to the pub bar to get one flagged down, meaning multiple trips and offers to just order food there and then. I would much prefer to order food and drink at the bar itself having given them my table number. This is fundamentally how pub food is ordered in a lot of pub locations and trying to change this is really inefficient for everyone involved. We were advised by the waiter to order drinks from the bar due to lost tickets all day. Clearly the whole process needs overhaul. The fish and chips - it was clear that you could get a fish dish but it was a combo mix of squid and some other items WITHOUT chips, which would have cost £25 in total (£20 for fish and £5 for side of chips) - we asked if those items could be substituted for chips but were turned down. Please enable a fish and chips to be ordered. One of our meals had to be substituted for a burger due to lack of food availability (no blame as busy bank holiday weekend) but better signposting is needed prior to ordering about dish availability. All in all - we wish the best for the Spotted Dog's future as they tweak things in this new era.

This pub seems to change owners every 5 minutes so with the new owners and us being locals we thoughts let's support them. We thought we'd have our post golf beers there along with dinner on a Saturday afternoon. As we arrived we were told the kitchen doesn't open for an hour. A bit annoying, we weren't expecting that but then we hadn't checked beforehand. We had some beers to fill the hour. An hour later we went to place the order and they advised there is limited options for dinner tonight as the chef wants to do prep work for the roast on Sunday. This was very annoying after waiting for the kitchen to open and they knew we were waiting. Do they not want money on a Saturday night? We moaned and then they 'accommodated' us by letting us order the platter. The total bill was about £160 for the 4 of us. Food and beers were very good. We wanted to support them and have a good time but it has put us of going back. We will go back but we won't be rushing back.

We came for a roast before in November and it was fantastic but we visited again last weekend and were unfortunately a bit disappointed. The food wasn't very hot and the potatoes were very dry. The gravy was very thin and didn't have much flavour. We did come later in the day so not sure if that made a difference however we were asked to pre order as requested by the pub so they did know we were coming. A few of our group had non roast meal but the menu had changed since we were last there and I do think the old menu was better the chips were quite dry as well. I'm not sure I'd rush back again which is a shame as in November I'd been singing it's praises.

I really really wanted to love this place. After seeing the menu I couldn't wait to try this place out. We ordered the meat sharing platter for £50. The cheesy tater tots were so good and the chicken and sausage were decent. Unfortunately the brisket was really dry, so was the pork rib. I actually couldn't eat part of the brisket because after chewing it for what felt like ages it wouldn't break down. That's the bad news BUT I understand this place has new management and a new menu. If they can execute the menu as it should be done this place will be a local gem. I will give it a few months and then give it another try. We love The Rock Inn and that pub has the same owners so this is definitely worthy of a second chance. Hopefully next time I will be able to give a 5 star review!

Sunday lunch with a group. The staff were superb and the place has a great atmosphere. Unfortunately, the food was pretty terrible. Roast potatoes that had the taste and texture of being old and re-heated. Veg that was undercooked; not "al danté", undercooked. Three portions of cauliflower cheese that were so sour they tasted like vinegar. We quietly suggested to the serving staff that possibly the milk in the cheese sauce may have been spoiled -- they came back and told us there is "no milk in the cauliflower cheese" ... Not sure how you make the cheese sauce for cauliflower cheese without milk, but I'll take their word for it -- in any case, tasted horrendous. If you're a meat lover, there's a good chance you'll get past the terrible sides and love the food for the meat alone, no complaints on that front.

Beautiful old cosy pub in lovely setting. Two gorgeous dogs live there too who greet you in a very friendly way. The only disappointments were that the dining room was rather cold in my opinion and nothing as cosy as the entrance room with its amazing fire and twinkly lights and then the food went cold straight away as it is served with unwarmed plates and as a sharing meal it is on a big tray with the fries all spread out and hence the fries go cold in a jiffy as they need to be huddled together in a cone or a tiny chip fryer to stay even vaguely warm. I don't know why they are spread right out across a tray as they lose their heat so fast and are then inedible in my opinion - I couldn't eat them and so wouldn't return for a meal solely due to cold fries and the rather cold dining room where I had to keep my coat on.

We were really excited to find a proper BBQ smokehouse so close but were a bit disappointed with the quality of the meal. It was fine but not as nice as other smokehouses we've been to; the brisket was very lean and quite dry and the pork rib seemed to have been roasted and didn't really have any BBQ flavour. The actual building is lovely and the staff were great, the garden looked like a beautiful place to sit out in the summer.

We stopped by for a drink and light bite in the pub garden and ordered crusty bread with oils and balsamic. However instead received slices of toast! I’ve never come across this before and super disappointed to be eating slices of supermarket bread and paying for the privilege. We raised this to the staff, however they seemed unfazed. We won’t be going back, our chips were out of a packet and very poor quality too. Not what we expected from a “lovely country pub.” -

We were excited to try American barbecue food. We were seated promptly and drinks followed shortly. Unfortunately the food was disappointing, the beef brisket, pulled pork and sausages were dry and lacked flavour. The chicken breast and pork ribs were nice though. Didn’t have that juicy and Smokey flavoursome bbq flavour we were expecting. Service wasn’t the friendliest from the head waitress /manager either. A disappointing experience and can’t say I would go back.

What a waste of time social networking has ruined food. Its all hyped up when in reality it was completely the opposite. 50 minute wait for a plate of poorly seasoned cold meat platter. Slaw was just shredded veg no sauce whatsoever the cowboy beans ....... well let's just say i have had tastier cardboard. Oh and let's not forget the beautiful tasting short rib they forgot to put on my plate. Oven chips and a smash burger that was just not a smash burger. Staff run ragged forgetting everything. Dont fool for it. Here I have added an Instagram hyped screen shot and also a real time pic. Also take your platinum Mastercard vip 3000 with you. The fact you have given a very bitter reply instead of a sorry says a lot. Absolute dive of a resturant. And remember its not about places I have reviewed this is about your moody old grub your selling! Have a great day and keep on serving tripe! Also head over to trip advisor and take a peep!

This evening myself and 6 of my friends drove for an hour to try the roast platter once we arrived we was sat down quickly (4:30pm) and had our orders taken which we found went smoothly and we could see the pub was busy after 24mins our drinks arrive leave some of the party out and we was told “can you not see they are being made” (nobody in sight to make a drink) after another 45mins some of our meal sides come out and with our mains following around 20-30mins later after we asked to get them out, 2 of the plates had somebody else’s dinner still on so we asked for clean ones which made management and staff very annoyed towards us and shown we had heard the staff speaking about behind the bar, all ignored we decided to not let this affect our evening until one of the party’s food never arrived and once it did she was served a 1/4 of chicken when she ordered the roast and was told to take roast potatoes off of someone else’s plate has they are meant to be friends, we the had further issue drinks not being served but added to the bill… We ask to discuss our experience and explain our discomfort to be then shouted at numerous times by staff and be told hurry up and pay! Which I found very rude then we had the manager come round and start the next level of aggression some of our table panicked has we had a small child with us and the staff was very abusive so they had left quickly other family had witnessed the ordeal and also had wanted to rush out to then have the dogs left out to jump up at tables while people eat and walk in the kitchen freely which again is very uncomfortable. We paid in full and left before the abuse got out of hand

I attended with my husband yesterday Saturday at 18:25. There was not much seating but we found a table seating 5 people. We were advised my who I presume was the manager who told us we could there for 22 minutes. When asked to order food she then said we could. I ordered meat platter costing £50 and asked if I could order the chillie you provide with your triple dipped burger. She charged me £6 for this and proceeded to give us half a thimble full. When I asked her for more she again brought another half a thimble full and placed it aggressively at the end of the table. Service was really bad and the chicken was not cooked through. As the only BLACK person there I felt targeted by her. My husband is not confrontational otherwise I would have wiped the floor with her rudeness. Not called for. PLEASE ALSO SEASON your meats before slow cooking or provide sauces with it. Disappointing visit.

This review is based purely on our experience before even dining here, and sadly the service alone has ensured we won’t be visiting. My fiancée was booking a table for my 30th birthday dinner for family. She initially made a mistake with the date and realised shortly afterwards that she wanted to move it to the Saturday rather than my actual birthday. As soon as she noticed, she drove straight down to the restaurant to resolve it in person. The manager said this was absolutely fine, explaining that the table could be moved to 7:00pm instead of the originally requested 6:30pm — which was no problem at all. With that agreed, everything seemed sorted and we were relieved. However, on the actual day of my birthday, the manager then rang my fiancée to say that we could no longer have the table. This understandably left her very upset, especially as she had already gone out of her way to fix the original mistake promptly and in person. I then called the restaurant myself to explain the situation and to say I was calling because my fiancée was extremely upset. The response I received was blunt and dismissive, essentially “it’s not my fault.” While that may be technically true, that attitude when dealing with a distressed customer — particularly over a special occasion — is completely unacceptable. Hospitality is about more than food. It’s about communication, empathy, and basic customer care. Based on the service received before even stepping through the door, we will not be visiting. In hindsight, it feels like we dodged a bullet.

This was such a disappointment. My friends and I booked this place for new years day and the staff were so rude and unhelpful. Felt like they were doing us a favour the whole time. The portions were tiny and really overpriced (£25 for one slice of toast avocado, eggs and some veggies!!! My partner left really hungry. Any other pub you would leave feeling full and satisfied for £30 as he had a drink as well). I've never left a bad review but this place...multiple times trying to get service and everyone was on their phones, one of the waitresses told us she wished she was at home but "lo and behold had to be here". A shame because the pub itself is very pretty. My partner and I had been there a few years prior and loved it so much that we wanted to bring our friends. I understand that they had had issues with shipping that day but they were treating us like it was our fault/they should have not accepted the booking if they couldn't accommodate us.

Lovely looking pub, with a nice atmosphere let down by terrible food. We went especially for the meaty one bbq platter and it was the worst bbq food we have ever had. None of the meats had a smoky taste at all. The pulled pork had a terrible soapy flavour, brisket was tough, dry sausage, paid extra for a short rib that was also tough which actually was a blessing as there was very little of it for £19!! Wet cold plates, very dissatisfying. Avoid at all costs.

To the Business Owner. I am leaving a review from our experience at your establishment on Sunday the 9th November 2025. We had booked a table for 13:30pm and we arrived early, 13:15pm. We noticed the table we had booked was occupied and the guests on the table were only just receiving their main meal. We were told by the staff that they were food bloggers and they would only be 10 minutes. Well 10 mintues elapsed and our friends arrived who had booked the table. When questioning the manager on the day a lady in a baseball cap, they were told that the table hadn't been booked and we could wait a further 10 minutes to have the table. Again as they were food bloggers. 13:30 quickly became 14:30pm, not once did the manager apologise for this. All she did was say she was doing everything she could for us??? By this time we as a group of four were quite incensed by this and again were told they were bloggers and there wasn't a lot more she could do. Again no apology at all. We decided that we did not want to continue our visit and decided to leave. The whole situation could have been handled so much better in my opinion, the manager did absolutely nothing to appease by way of an apology or even to say i will offer you a round of drinks for your wait, all she was interested in was giving the food bloggers all of her attention and her entire focus was making sure they were happy. And for this reason I am leaving this dreadful review. KR

My friends and I had a very disappointing experience at this restaurant. After a long wait my food came out wrong and when we tried explaining our issues the staff acted like we was the problem and responded with sarcasm and rudeness which was highly unprofessional. What made it worse was how differently we were treated compared to other customers. While others were spoken to respectfully, we felt dismissed and looked down on, which honestly made us feel uncomfortable and unwelcome. No customer should be made to feel that way. Mistakes happen, but poor attitude and disrespectful service are unacceptable. I’m leaving this review to warn others about the lack of professionalism and courtesy we experienced. I won’t be returning.