Situated in the beautiful surroundings of Bute Park, the Secret Garden cafe appears to be the perfect place to stop for a drink and a bite to eat.
The menu offers a good selection of paninis, sandwiches and hot food, as well as both hot and cold drinks.
We arrived at the cafe at lunchtime on a sunny (but cold) February day - and this is where things started to go downhill.
Things didn't look too hopeful when we arrived to see a queue of people from the counter right out through the cafe gates. However, we found a seat and I joined the queue.
40 minutes later, I had finally reached the counter. We were originally going to have a panini each. However, when somebody came up to the counter to ask whether they had been forgotten (they had obviously ordered food some time ago, and were still waiting), we decided not to. I ordered a coffee and a hot chocolate. The coffee was nice, but the hot chocolate was appalling. It was obvious that the cafe were using the cheapest cocoa powder they could get their hands on, and just adding hot water (not even any milk!). It was so bad that my girlfriend had one mouthful, and decided to leave it - £1.95 down the drain.
Overall we were very disappointed with our visit. I appreciate that it was busy, but any half decent cafe should anticipate trade and ensure that there are adequate staff to cover it - this was blatantly not the case on this occasion and I feel sorry for the 3 staff (1 serving and doing drinks, 1 cooking, 1 waitressing) who had to try to manage the woeful situation.
Overall - could do better. Much better. read more