The Gilmanton Pub is a 33-seat restaurant that is three years old with a loyal following of patrons from Gilmanton and surrounding towns. Located in the center of the Gilmanton Historic District, "The Tavern" is an elegantly restored 14-room, 18th Century Colonial that served as an important way station for 18th Century travelers. Over the last month, the Pub has made awewsome changes in staff, menu, live music entertainment, and prices. For example, prices have undergone a significant reduction - nearly every food or beverage has been reduced from 12%-to-36%. Every appetizer, salad, dessert, and entrée has seen their prices lowered. The Lobster Ravioli is now $24, reduced from $35, a 34% reduction. Even pizzas have seen their prices cut. An 18-inch pizza is $11, down 15% from $13. Beverages have undergone similar cuts. A $14 glass of Dewars is now $9, a 36% drop. A "heavy pour" of J. Lohr Chardonnay is down from $13 to $9, a drop of 31%. The food is excellent and the atmosphere is quintessential old school New England. Check out the live music and the fire pit! read more

See all

Hands down the worst dining experience I've had. The service was very slow and the quality of the food was dreadful. It took 20 minutes to get drink and that required prompting the staff. The food came out in stages. Spinach and artichoke dip was okay. The brisket was so awful. Looked like a small pile of meat left over from a French dip sandwich. The gumbo was overly seasoned with oregano, had no shrimp and the andouille sausage tasted more like kielbasa. The burger was fair but the chips were stale. The pizza came out 30 minutes after three of us at the table had already been given our entrees. I have no idea how anyone could recommend this place. Ever. read more

I stopped in at the Gilmanton Pub for dinner very recently, which is located in a small town between the Lakes Region and the Seacoast of New Hampshire. Aka The Temperance Tavern, the Gilmanton Pub has that old style New England country inn atmosphere set in an old house with lots of framed historic pictures and decorations on the walls and dining areas in the main pub area, and smaller more intimate dining rooms with fireplaces and comfortable chairs. There is also background music playing from Music Choice on TVs with Pop Country music in the pub area and Classical music in the smaller room. Anyways, they are open for dinner Wed-Sun from 5pm to 10pm and now open for lunch on Saturdays at 11am with limited selections from the dinner menu. As for the food, they offer a selection of appetizers (meatballs, dips, nachos, wings, cheese & fruit platter, charcuterie board, bruschetta), salads, lots of pasta dishes (ravioli dishes, pappardelle, rice, gluten free ziti), and dessert (gelato, brownie, apple pie, cheesecake). Gluten free options are available for some of the dishes. The prices here are a bit high for what you get, most food items $10-$24 range and desserts $7-$9. They also have a beverage menu of red wines, white wines, cocktails, bottled beers, craft beers, and non-alcoholic drinks. I stopped in after they just opened for the evening and sat in the pub area. It was not too busy and I was served promptly. I was given ice water and a blue glass bottle at the table to refill my glass when needed. I ate light and ordered the Louisiana Gumbo ($18) with a Side Salad ($7). The side salad came out first when was a chopped salad with fresh greens, carrots, peppers, vipe ripe tomatoes, and thick bleu cheese dressing on the side. The Gumbo dish was served in a small bowl with on top of firm cooked pappadelle pasta, which had a mix of chicken, andoulle sausage and vegetables, served with a very small piece of bread. This dish was okay, which was not spicy and a bit bland tasting. I finished this dish quickly and passed on the offer for dessert since I was heading over to a bar in the Lakes Region for more food later on. The check before tip was $27.25. The food was decent and pricey for what I received overall and the service was efficient. PARKING is a bit tight along the south side of the building, angle parking in. read more

See all

This place is incredible! The building and interior is so special you'd expect them to be serving a tasting menu for $200+ a seat, but to have affordable high quality pub food in such a location is just the absolute best!! And the staff were so unimaginably kind I couldn't believe where we had walked into! We did sit at the bar so we were in the middle of everything, but they were so kind and friendly, and really went above and beyond to make us feel comfortable. This is an amazing venue for a wedding or any sort of upscale party! It's truly a magical location! read more

What a poor experience never going back we got nachos. After a hour goes by our waitress to us the forget to take the chili out of the freezer and they ran out of pizza doe read more

We never even got a drink. when a "server" finally came to our table, he told us he was working the kitchen and waiting tables! There was no bartender on duty, but he could make a margarita. Re-read the menu and you'll see that many of the items are "made exclusively for the Gilmanton Pub" by a Boston Chef. That tells me they get them frozen and heat them on site. Where were the owners? Helping the two kids trying to wait and staff the kitchen? Nope! After greeting us, they disappeared. We won't be back. read more

Incredible service and excellent pizza! We loved our time there and the staff was wonderful, looking forward to our next visit!

My family went to Gilmanton Pub for dinner last Friday night 7-31-20. They did a wonderful job accommodating our party of 8 outdoors (w/reservations) and followed all safety and distancing practices. Service was lovely and prompt, food was fresh and delicious, bottles of wine were generous/affordable, and entree prices were reasonable. I had split beet & feta salad with asparagus ravioli entrees with my sister, both were excellent. Others had pappardelle, chili, bruschetta (huge!), GF pasta Bolognese, and lobster ravioli and everyone throughly enjoyed them. They gave us a tour after dinner and learning about the history of the place was interesting. Check this place out! read more

See all

The atmosphere was really cool, however everything else was sub par. Our service was pretty slow especially for it not being busy. We got an app, a small bowl of chowder, a single can of beer, small glass of wine, a burger (super bland) and a small personal pizza (pretty burnt but didn't want to wait another half hour/45 min for another one)..Total before tip was $75...the single can of beer and small glass of wine was over $23..like I said the atmosphere was cool but everything else made it not worth coming back. Disappointing because we were really hoping to like this place. read more

Not one positive thing to say. We had to wait for a table, which is fine, so decided to order drinks while we waited. We stood at the bar for 20 minutes and had to repeat our order 3 times before we got those drinks. One of the drinks was a glass of Chardonnay from a bottle that had not been chilled. The person that poured it never even mentioned that. When we got a table we ordered an app, 3 salads, 4 entrees and a pizza. We then ordered a beer and 2 glasses of wine. Beer came quickly but after 20 minutes we had to ask for the wine again. Waited 45 minutes before the app came, and then they gave us garlic bread that had clearly been sitting around. Another 20 minutes and 2 of the entrees and 3 of the salads came. The brisket did not even appear edible. Another 5 minutes for the third entree and another 15 minutes for the pizza. At that point we asked for a box and the check. They had 3 people working and only one was doing the cooking. I have eaten in restaurants all over the country and this was by far the worst experience I have ever had. read more

Disappointed. We were some of the first customers when they opened, hoping to find a "local fave" to bring family and friends. Tonight was my last try at liking them at six visits total, split by the Covid. Another new waitress and long wait for cocktails, we had to ask for more fire wood to give company to the lone log struggling against the minus degree cold breezing from the old window. Twelve dollars for six chicken wings, ten for a Caesar salad that looked like one of the bagged ones from the market. I know the difference from "house made croutons" and bagged discount store ones also no Caesar dressing on the salad. They sent a Kens Dressing packet to the table. And charged for it. Sixteen dollars for Smoked Brisket that was more "crumbles" than slices of brisket. The broccoli was showing brown signs of age. But here lies the disappoint in that the "Lobster ravioli" was not hot and the cream sauce was over cooked, burned and salty to be inedible. It literally looked like a cat ate some shaker Parmesan cheese and vomited it onto the pasta. Proper lobster ravioli has an orange stripe Like The One On Their Webpage With A Proper Cream Sauce. This tells the "Chef" it's not another type of ravioli. So, In forty years of dining with my wife I have never sent anything back to the kitchen as I am well aquainted to kitchen operations but after belatedly reading other reviews I realized this was not a one off , bad night for "chef". No one from the hostess or kitchen or owner approached our table to acknowledge the return they left the brand new waitress to apologize for them. I tipped her very well and thanked her for her great service, it was not her fault the meal was my final disappointment with this place. They may not care for my review but I will tell anyone who will listen to save their money and go to a more mature and established restaurant ,do your homework and Read Reviews first. James from Alton. read more

Our party of six was disappointed in several ways. Food served was not as described....no lobster in the "lobster ravioli".... 'wedge salad" was not a wedge of the usual iceberg type lettuce, but was served on top of romaine lettuce leaves! The menu listed several after dinner type liqueurs, most of which were not available. Those they had were the last in the bottle so couldn't have another. It seemed as though the two wait staffers were doubling as servers, bar tenders and maybe kitchen cooks! We would not recommend The Pub and will not try it again. It's an interesting old house turned into a restaurant, rather charming but not as a restaurant. We hear it is for sale so maybe things will change!? read more

the mention of slow cooking and dining should have been a tip off. we were served an hour after ordering an appetizer, had to go in to another dining area to find a waitress to order a drink, it was difficult to enjoy the food which was good after being ignored read more

I tried really hard to like this restaurant. Some suggestions I would make it to create a more well rounded menu. There are far too many bland or similar items. You can only get away with so many ravioli options. Also the pricing is a little out there for a "pub." An order of no frills mac & cheese is 13 dollars. Three cheese ravioli is 16 dollars with an option for an 8 additional dollars for meat balls... yikes. Being in the food service industry I tend to identify food product at cost and it is my impression that the pricing here is quite exuberant for what it is. I am aware they can price things however they wish but with my understand of the product I did not feel the final product was worth the cost. :( Willing to try again. read more

My Husband and I stopped in for dinner tonight. We are from Gilmanton and we were hoping that this would be a regular local haunt for us, but sadly not. Disappointed is being kind, the corn chowder was sour and sent back, the spaghetti bolognese "dinner" was a tiny bowl of spaghetti poorly seasoned, served with a cold roll. My husband had the ham dinner, nothing special. In fact, you would expect that the dinning experience that is advertised in the local daily newspaper would have been memorable. It was memorable, paper plates, paper bowls, over priced. The smart move is to by pass this restaurant and go in either direction to get some decent food. read more

Without a doubt the worst dining experience I have ever had. We arrived at about 1:30pm on Sunday of MLK weekend and when we entered we weren't even sure the place was open. No one greeted us for several minutes, and we could see no other guests in the establishment. The overall vibe and look of the place looked interesting so we waited until the one (and only) waitress finally greeted us. We were told that one of the rooms had a fireplace. Being a cold January day we opted for that, only to be find no fire was actually lit, and the whole place was absolutely FREEZING! One couple asked if it would be possible to light the fire and were told it wouldn't be possible... but they ended up lighting it themselves somehow (unreal I'm even typing this). We both had to put our winter jackets on to stay warm. To add insult to injury the entire pub was completely silent. No music, tv's or white noise, just the awkward silence of the four or five other guests muttering the same hilariously confused and angered sentiments regarding their experience. When our food came it would be generous to say it was lukewarm, and didn't taste well to begin with. My girlfriend ordered a burger and was told they don't serve french fries, so she opted for the "chips". Turns out they served her Tostitos corn chips with her burger! Literally unthinkable some of the things that went on. The service was extremely slow and it didn't seem like they were in a rush to help you. It's sad because I am sure they are struggling for good help, and they have a pretty decent setting, but they seem to be completely content with offering a horrendous dining experience. I am a fan of local business and I hope this place can figure it out. My advice would be to truly care about each individual's experience and if the workers themselves would be happy dining there. Have a sense of urgency and a plan to present a good product and they might be able to turn it around. Have a sense of pride in the business you are showcasing. Otherwise, close it down now, because sooner or later it will cease to have any business at all, and it's not worth wasting more money. Unfortunately, failing dining establishments like this tend to lack strong leadership. read more