The Glasshouse at The Grove Hotel: beautiful on the surface but problematic underneath!
Stunning
What’s not to like?
the grounds are absolutely stunning
the restaurant has a beautiful view
the decor is gorgeous
the layout of the areas within the hotel e.g. the bar, the restaurant and so on, is inviting
Beyond appearances
My experience is a bit of a mixed bag! Let me talk you through what happened.
We arrived and were greeted by a smiley doorman who told us where The Glasshouse was.
The waiter outside the restaurant told us that it wasn’t open yet so we’d need to come back later. At this point, it was 17.57 or 17.58 and the restaurant was due to open at 18.00
We were going to exit the hotel and walk around outside but the doorman told us about the wonderful views behind the restaurant so we went there.
We returned and the man who was managing the bar greeted us and took us to the restaurant.
We were seated after which a waitress came and explained that she could see we were vegan from the notes on the booking and that we could do one of two things. We could walk around the buffet and see what’s what which would be easy because it’s fairly self-explanatory or we could ask the Head Chef to talk us through the options. We said we’d go for option one if it was obvious.
We got to the buffet, walked around and quickly realised that there were no labels and things really weren’t obvious at all.
A member of staff saw that we looked confused so she approached us and we asked her if she could tell us what the vegan options were. She said she would get the Head Chef.
The Head chef was lovely. He pointed out all the vegan options and where they were limited, he offered to have a veganised version of the item made up for us.
We spotted the dessert station and asked the person who was managing it to tell us which options were vegan. There were loads of options but only two of them were vegan. He realised that this wasn’t very good and he said he’d go down and see if anything else was available,
We got some food and returned, only to notice, about ten minutes after, that the ‘dessert guy’ hadn’t come back. We asked another waiter if he had gone off shift as someone else was managing the dessert stand now. He came back and told us that he was talking to the pastry chef, that they were making something for us and that everything would be fine.
We went back and forth a few times and got more food, only to find that one of the things that the Head Chef said we could have wasn’t vegan! Luckily, he wasn’t in the kitchen and when he saw us approaching the area where the roasted vegetables were, he told us that the carrots were cooked in honey, so we couldn’t have them.
What would have happened if he wasn’t there? :(
We finished our meal and went to the dessert stand. The person we approached before was back so we asked him what we could have and he said that nothing had changed. There were only two options.
What happened next?
I spoke to the Duty Manager and explained all of the above. I probably wouldn’t have bothered sharing any of it if there was a greater choice of desserts but I felt like there were too many hiccups! Also, we’d followed up after we thought that the ‘dessert guy’ had gone home and were told that everything would be fine and that they were making something for us! This wasn’t the case and had we known before, I would have said something before to give them a chance to rectify it, rather than, getting to the end of the meal and being told there were two desserts. One of them was a strawberry lolly and the other was an apricot cheesecake, which was more like yoghurt with some sort of apricot flavouring!
Also, they knew we were vegan because we called and asked if they had options and we mentioned it in the booking!
The Deputy Manager was grateful for the feedback. She understood that when there were so many non-vegan options for dessert, they needed to do better than offering two vegan desserts. She deducted the cost of our drinks from the bill.
Would I return for a meal at The Glasshouse?
No, I wouldn’t!
Why not?
The service was slow
I ordered a flat white and then asked for an extra shot of coffee and by the time it was served, my coffee was only lukewarm
We were told that we might need to move to the bar if we weren’t finished by the end of our allocated slot but loads of the tables were empty so this seemed unnecessary
After we passed our time allocation, our waitress seemed disinterested and took even longer to attend to our table
I didn’t feel looked after from the outset as the waitress seemed quite blasé about us needing to know what was vegan
The Head Chef failed to tell us that the carrots had been cooked in honey
There were only two desserts
Why has this experience bothered me enough to write this review?
Out of all the reviews that I’ve written since starting Plant Shift in 2012, I believe this is the third, which is negative. In terms of service, vegan options and labelling, I would expect much more from a five-star hotel.
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“When people ask me why I don’t eat meat or any other animal products, I say, ‘Because they are unhealthy and they are the product of a violent and inhumane industry.”