Sondes Arms

Amazing experience. Lovely food as always. Great service. Amazing cheesecake

Couldn't fault this place it was jam packed on a Wednesday night so they must be doing something right 👉. Booked a table for 6 o clock as we were staying in the village and wanted to have a Carvery 'Outstanding ' and my pint of Guinness was up there with the Best. The staff worked there socks off to keep up with all the orders and it was a very pleasant evening. Many Thanks.

One of the best Sunday Carveries in Northamptonshire! So much choice, fresh and delicious!

Had a lovely Sunday roast carvery lunch at The Sondes Arms in Rockingham. The food was excellent — generous portions, perfectly cooked meats, and plenty of choice on the carvery. The atmosphere was relaxed and welcoming, and the pub itself has loads of character. Special mention to Annie, our server, who was friendly, attentive, and made the whole experience even better. Great service all round — will definitely be back again soon!

Went with our family, daughters, husbands and grandchildren. We all had the Sunday carvery, which was excellent, both in terms of variety, quality and presentation. The children’s menu is excellent value, with the carvery as a main course option! We all enjoyed our visit and would highly recommend as a family friendly place to eat.

Excellent Sunday Roast at this very good pub in Rockingham. The fifth time we have been, very good value for money, only £15.95 for a carvery where you can have up to 4 meats and as much veg as you, can eat. Staff are always friendly, our waitress Flo was very efficient and friendly as we're all other staff. We will be back again soon.

The food was really good, beautifully prepared, and full of flavour. The staff were great—friendly, attentive, and welcoming. The atmosphere was lovely and peaceful, making it a perfect place to relax and enjoy the meal. Highly recommended.

Firstly it’s always a good idea to book in advance for your Sunday carvery, especially when it’s a cold or wet day out as it gets busy. Secondly, even though it was busy the service was decent, fairly quick and Flo was attentive throughout. The food was good and being a carvery you can help yourself to all the trimmings, which are constantly being refreshed. Pricing is good, deserts can be a little pricey if you can fit one in. Drinks are also reasonable and the red wine selection small but very well chosen.

Very good value for money, prompt service. My only comments were the radiators were on and too hot to sit next to, also personal preference but the cutlery was oversized. Overall a lovely treat for us on our doorstep.

Phenomenal service and top notch food. Could not have asked for better service and the atmosphere is awesome. We had the burger and was the best burger in the UK. Been all over the world and would consider this place a top 5 restaurant. Absolutely rock solid.

We attended a themed morning for children. I was so impressed with the lovely atmosphere created, the food & service. A lovely place & event. Thank you!

Come for a meal this evening with my husband and daughters to celebrate my birthday. Staff fantastic service was faultless and food was hot and delicious

Ten stars! The staff went above and beyond to accommodate a complicated range of allergies for one customer: phone calls to check foods, brought out product packaging to check ingredients. I rarely eat out with family, but today I could. Shout out to Bradley for cooking an outstanding meal and checking ingredients with us. Greatly appreciated and utterly delicious. Thank you everyone.

Fantastic night out. Full carvery, starter and main. Superb meat, lovely veg and starter and pud to die for. Annie’s service was faultless and we’ll definitely be back (again).

Amazing food, great service, really nice staff. Honestly. They couldn’t have been more accommodating. Easy to book, perfect pub !

I had a fantastic experience at the Sondes Arms! The atmosphere is warm and inviting, making it the perfect place to relax. The food was absolutely delicious—crafted with quality ingredients and served fresh. Their selection of drinks was impressive, with a great variety of ales, cocktails, and non-alcoholic options. What made the visit even more memorable was the exceptional service from Zara, who was friendly and attentive, ensuring we had everything we needed. Overall, a great spot for good food, drinks, and excellent hospitality. Highly recommend and will definitely be returning!

Came here last night with my friends for a Christmas meal. We hired The Stables. Such a lovely space to have privacy when you’re in a large group. Nice atmosphere as they let you put on a playlist too. Was three courses for £35, everyone raved about their starters and for mains we had a mixture of pork and carveries. All the meat was so tender. The potato dauphinoise were excellent and all the veg was really fresh and tasty. Would deffo recommend to hire the stables, but if you’re looking for somewhere to try a great carvery too, give this place a go! Ellie the manager was excellent and so attentive.

My fiancé and I had our engagement party at the Sondes. We hired out their function room, The Stables. We had around 45 guests and the room was the perfect size alongside the decking out the front. It was a great space for us all. For food, we had buffet style bbq and hog roast pulled pork. All of our guests have said how nice the food was and that they really enjoyed it. Everyone loved the space as well and said it was perfect for our party. Ellie & Brad helped us with organising the night, from the room to the food to prosecco on arrival, and they were just amazing. Can’t recommend them enough, they were both so lovely and really helped us create the night we both wanted. The staff on the night were all fab too, all so personable and welcoming to us and our guests. Would highly recommend the Sondes Arms for any parties/events/functions. Great location, fab space and lovely staff. Oh and we had a carvery on the Sunday, the day after our party, and that was so tasty too!! ✨🤍

Last night, 25 of us ate at the sondes' arms. This was pre booked for my husbands 50th birthday. From the moment we arrived, our young server chloe greeted us with a smile and took our drinks orders. From there on, things only got better. We are a rowdy bunch, and there was some restless little ones. Nothing was too much trouble for chloe. She was so attentive. Then the food arrived, all at the same time, piping hot, and absolutely delicious !!!! The steak melted. You could have eaten it with a spoon. Everyone was raving about their food, and we were all trying each other's. I can 💯 recommend this place, and we will definitely be back. All the staff are friendly, and Denika who arranged everything was flexible, accomodating and done a wonderful job

Thursdays Steak night @ Sondes Arms, Rockingham was absolutely lovely! Best meal I’ve had in a Long time!! £40 two steaks 🥩 two sides and two dessert (or a bottle of wine) (forgot to take photos of the desserts 🤦🏼‍♀️) we added a couple of starters on too 😍 could not fault the food or service! Definitely going back ☺️

Booked a table with half hour notice. Got us a table straight away. From walking in through , it was obvious it's a busy place. Was met at the door and shown to the table. Drinks order was taken and arrived at the table within 5 minutes. Carvery was well set out with a variety of meats. Staff are very friendly and welcoming. The place itself has quite a good relaxed atmosphere. Although quite a distance from home, if I'm in the area, I'll be stopping here again.

I’ve been in this lovely pub for a Christmas dinner. The food is really good and there’s such a nice atmosphere. Many vegan and vegetarian options too. The only slight downside was the parking lot, which can get a bit muddy. It’s not a major issue, but something to be aware of. Overall, a great experience and definitely worth visiting!

The restaurant's environment was pretty good and the waiters were efficient. The food was ok; let's say that the food was quite average.

Lovely carvery. Good hot food with choice. The place was busy but we were able to go to the carvery within 20mins of seating. Staff were lovely, kind and helpful.

Food was good and reasonably priced. Being disabled we were superbly waited upon by Flo who was kind, courteous a credit to the restaurant

We enjoyed a lovely meal as a family of 4 on a Friday evening. The atmosphere was relaxed and Ellie was a fantastic waitress who made us feel welcome and relaxed! Lucky to have this pub so close to home. Thank you Ellie for giving us a nice evening with the children Great playlist too!

The meal was lovely. The staff were all lovely. Sam had a lovely smile on his face the whole time. Very welcoming. The only slight criticism would be the Brussels, they were under cooked and chewy. Quite disappointing as they are my favourite veg.

Just had a very nice carvery at the Sondes Arms. The quality of the meat (beef and turkey in my case) was very good and there was plenty of choice of vegetables. The service was a little slow overall but this not a reflection on Zara who was our server, she was polite and professional and is a real asset to your team. Some of the chairs could do with being changed, due to quite loose legs and the area we sat in was dark due to no lighting. Overall the experience was a pleasant one and we will definitely return. Thank you.

Very nice atmosphere and food if you want to go for Sunday lunch. Be aware that this is a busy bar and restaurant, meaning you will need to wait 30+ mins for your food to arrive. Highly recommend pre booking to guarantee a table.

Popped in for the carvery. Very strange set up. We were told to wait at our table to be told when we could go get our food. We waited around 20 minutes. Meat portion was reasonable. No green veg except very mushy overcooked broccoli. Everything else was ok. Dessert was a big let down. The menu says the cheesecake comes with Cherry compote and cream. It came with neither. It also says the sticky toffee pudding is warm. It’s not. Overall a very underwhelming experience.

You won’t be wowed, but you won’t be disappointed. We had the carvery, just under £16pp. We waited 25mins for drinks to arrive and 30mins to go up to the carvery, plenty of options, adequate in taste, obviously some elements had been previously frozen, the cauliflower cheese was creamy but lacked flavour….would I go again…Yes, but it’s on the cheaper end for Sunday lunch so you get what you pay for.

Table wasn’t set when we arrived so had to ask for it after sitting for a while. Starter was okay. It was the Xmas menu so had a carvery. We waited over an hour to be called to collect carvery as they had forgot us. Food was nice. Not overly warm. Meat was lovely. Overall the service wasn’t good. Don’t think it was overly busy Several used glasses left at our table etc.

Half empty restaurant on Thursday Steak Night where there were actually no steaks available for the price of the offer. We had to go with the ribeye option at the cost of an extra on top of the offer price. Had the bread starter option that in the menu reads "Warm rustic breads, extra virgin oil & Modena balsamic vinegar and a selection of butters", consisted and should have been described as "Cold burned sourdough and some sort of focaccia, with blend of refined oils & balsamic vinegar and spread with some herbs which in nothing resembled to butter", which is what we were actually served. The understaffed team of 2 running around trying to keep up with the service, which surely is not their fault, were not enough to provide a decent service. The actual steaks, despite not having been seasoned properly, were cooked at the requested temperature.

The carvery has gone down hill since I last went. Everything used to be fresh and homemade. Frozen broccoli, could tell the cauliflower cheese was also frozen with some grated cheese on. Meat was okay but port and turkey very dry. The roast potatoes were awful, tasted like reheated microwave one. Everything had no taste… carrots and parsnips were home made but no garlic or honey on them. The Yorkshire pudding was a small frozen one. Stuffing was tasteless. £47 for 2 Pepsi max and 2 carvery’s. I wouldn’t go back… very disappointed as it used to be such good food and didn’t mind paying the extra for home made. Really disappointed - in and out in half an hour on a Sunday afternoon.

04/10/25 We dined with a party of five and found the pub unusually empty. The food was disappointing; two portions had to be returned to the kitchen and the fish was undercooked. Throughout our visit smoke drifted from the kitchen, forcing us to open windows and doors. The experience was unsatisfactory, and the price did not reflect the quality of the food, service or ambience. We will not be returning.

Poorly organised afternoon tea. Jam was out of stock - for an afternoon tea that we had prebooked. Whilst I understand menu items may vary: instead of a black forest gateau, we had a chocolate cupcake and instead of a cake pop & a mince pie we had some leftover roulade from the restaurant chucked in a pot. Horseradish missing from yorkshire wrap too. Staff were not attentive at all - had to go up & interrupt their conversations multiple times to get our table, tea refill, cutlery & the bill after waiting for a generous amount of time. When we arrived there were 2 large tables, but they left half way through our sitting and we saw no improvement in service - it got worse. Quite a journey for us but I really wanted to go as I had a lovely afternoon tea here last year - fell short this tim

⭐ Honest Review We booked our cricket coach’s Christmas dinner expecting a smooth, well-organised evening, but unfortunately the experience fell well short. There were long delays throughout the meal, and the kitchen ran out of food, which is unacceptable for a pre-booked group booking. To make matters worse, desserts that had been ordered were never brought out at all. When the bill arrived, it was incorrect and confusing, adding further frustration at the end of the night. When we raised our concerns, the response was rude and dismissive, rather than apologetic or helpful. It was a disappointing end to what should have been an enjoyable team event. Sadly, we wouldn’t return based on this experience. — at Sondes Arms

It was absolutely horrible. It took 2 and a half hours for us to get our food and we ended up having to cancel half of our meals because they had to ‘clean the whole kitchen’ which was a lie. When the food did come it was cold, burnt, bland, and overall disgusting. The service was terrible and half of the glasses and cutlery weren’t clean. Do not recommend.

A group of 8 people with a reservation made in advance. We ordered drinks, starters, steaks with side dishes. After 40 minutes of sitting, a waiter rushed over to tell us that the chef had just realized they had no steaks left. He also said they could only make seven burgers from what was remaining. The second round of drinks, which we ordered after 15 minutes, arrived another 40 minutes later. The overall experience was terrible.

Very disappointed. We booked a birthday meal over 2 months in advance and pre-ordered all of the food. The food took nearly 2 hours to come and was of poor quality. We also sat in the cold for around an hour even when we had asked them to turn the heating up. They ended up giving us a discount after 2 people cancelled their food and we cancelled our dessert, but frankly we would rather pay full price and have a decent meal.