A group of 10 of us dined here recently to celebrate a friends engagement. The setting is exquisite, with vines coming up to the edge of the dining area and the picturesque mountainous craggy range looming in the background.
The menu was interesting and innovative, making use of fresh and local ingredients. I thought the meals themselves were a little underwhelming, but only because I had such high expectations going in. Overall the meals and food were very good. The only downside was my fillet of steak which I had requested rare was actually cooked to medium. Everyone else's were cooked perfectly though. I had the scampi for entree and it was nice and not like anything I had really had before. The dish of clams was HUGE and forage (salad) was likewise a sizeable dish and beautifully presented. Of the main dishes I thought the whole fillet of fish was the most special dish. Not only was it delicious, but the waiter will fillet it at the table if you don't wish to do it yourself. The duck was also very tasty. I had the mint/chocolate for dessert and thought this is the most impressive of what I had ordered. It was incredibly decadent but the fresh mint sorbet (which amazingly actually tasted like mint leaves) balanced the dish perfectly. The wines we ordered were good but didn't make a huge impact on me.
What let this experience down a little (apart from my steak) was the lacklustre service. The woman who looked after us was very grumpy and made us feel like we were an undue burden. Water glasses were not filled up during the meal (a pet hate of mine - if they aren't going to keep glasses full then leave the pitcher of water on the table!!), and our wine was taken away and left at the server station. This is presumably so that they can refill the wine glasses, and would have been fine if they had done so. Instead after we had empty glasses for quite some time and were unable to attract attention of anyone to help. In the end I simply got the bottles back myself and topped everyone up, leaving the bottles on our table. I received quite the disgruntled glance for this but was unrepentant. When pouring the bottles initially, she also made the guest of honour feel bad for her choice as it "was about to run out" (ummm we can order more?) so she switched her wine choice. The gentleman who served us towards the end of the night was much friendlier but I don't think it speaks well to a restaurant when the main talking point afterwards was how scary / grumpy the server is. Its a good thing their food redeemed them. read more