- Overall 3
- Food 3
- Service 3
- Ambience 3
The milling unsettled crowd at the reception desk as we arrived for our afternoon tea was a warning sign. There was no order at all in which guests were dealt . I stood right by the desk and people adding themselves to the chaos were dealt with first. As far as I could tell there were 5 receptionists. One guest told me she had been waiting 35 minutes to be dealt with. Then up came a stunning young lady , another guest , barging to the front asking for her cake. The receptionist advised her to ask her waitress but as far as I could hear the answer was " she keeps on disappearing" . I decided to assertively announce my arrival to the front desk and this got me some attention and an offer to take my coat. I made the mistake of turning away to call my wife from the bar where she had taken refuge from this nonsense, literally for 5 seconds and that was enough to break my newborn guest/receptionist connection for the next few minutes until I got fed up and had to tell them they needed to get more organised. You know what I was told? A rather testy : well your reservation is not for another 2 minutes. Zero apology, zero charm. Maybe all the front desk team had synchronised themselves , as my wife commented to me . I told them I would complain about them which resulted in further passive aggressive stares without any hint of penitence. We finally were led to our table and a charming waiter came and greeted us with such a gentle air of " you can tell me anything " that I felt that I could unburden myself . It turned out he was the manager. He listened, empathised with humour , got to know us , ensured the rest of our afternoon tea was amazingly catered for. +2 gratis cocktails! The food itself had air of trying too hard. There was not a finger sandwich in sight , rather interpretations thereof. Admittedly some were rather gallant but it was not afternoon tea as we know it Jim. The scones which are crucial for AT were too sugared
