Trillium Boutique City Hotel — Hotel in Colombo

The Mezza9, a fine dining restaurant at the newly opened luxury boutique city hotel, Trillium Hotels, unveiled its signature menu on the 13th of November 2018. It showcases a vast array of world class cuisines and is said to herald a “new era of epicurean dining”.

Mr. Rachitha Ratnayaka, Director of Trillium Hotels, emphasised that their focus lies in giving Sri Lankans a taste of elite international cuisines. Speaking to him, he said “We have been to many parts of Europe and Asia, and tasted the finest food from various high end restaurants, and have chosen some of the best foods and introduced them here with a little Sri Lankan twist, to suit the palates of the people. We have quite a variety of food at prices that range between a thousand rupees to eight thousand rupees, thereby making our food available to a person of any caliber looking for a good high end meal.”

Their menu definitely looked spectacular as it included an assortment of luxury dishes such as Peri-Peri Chicken, Duck and Beetroot two ways, Wagyu Ribeye, a Salmon two way and their signature dish Surf and Turf, just to mention a few.

The ambiance was extremely welcoming and everyone, including Mr.Rachitha, was friendly.

The Food

We were recommended 5 dishes in particular followed by dessert to review. We first tried the Wild Mushroom Risotto, which had an abundance of mushrooms and cheese. The winner of this dish was the overwhelming amount of cheese, which is what I love, and it was truly mouthwatering delight. For two people with small appetites, this dish is enough to serve two.

This was accompanied by the Wagyu Rib eye Steak and Salmon Two Ways. Wagyu beef is arguably the best beef in the world, and Mezza9 is one of the few elite restaurants in Colombo who serve this. The steak was done medium well, and the meat was tender and had the perfect texture to it.  It was definitely a delicacy, although I felt like they could have done a tad more in terms of flavour. The silky mash and pickled onions complemented the steak quite well.

The salmon done two ways was also a commendable dish. I'm not a huge fan of salmon, but this dish was remarkable. I particularly liked the the salmon sashimi with soy sauce, wasabi, pickled ginger, and lime, which gave it that additional zing. The sashimi was smooth and had a delicate texture. Although I’m not a fan of salmon tartare, if you do love your salmon, I’d certainly recommend this dish.

The highlight of the day, however, was the Peri Peri Grilled Chicken. There were two pieces of grilled chicken marinated in peri peri sauce, which made it quite spicy. I really enjoyed this dish because the chicken was really soft and the flavours were simply astounding. To put it plainly, it was finger licking good! The chicken was served with saffron rice and tabbouleh salad, and though it complemented the chicken quite well, I felt that the chicken would have easily made a great dish on it’s own. I would certainly recommend this to someone who craves a good flavoursome chicken dish.

The final dish presented was the Duck and Beetroot two ways. I particularly disliked the five spice crusted duck breast. It was quite hard and I felt like they could improve a lot in terms of flavour. However, the confit duck leg with fig jam however made up for this shortcoming as it was cooked to perfection and would just melt in my mouth. The fig jam complemented the duck so well, and it was truly a delicious combination.

The desserts we got were the Passion Fruit Panna Cotta and the Molten Chocolate Cake. Although both were great desserts, they were nothing extraordinary about either of them.

The Mezza9 at the Trillium Hotels Colombo definitely offers one the ultimate fine dining experience. The restaurant is luxurious and besides having the finest food on offer, it has a beautiful rooftop view of Colombo to complement. I’d definitely recommend this restaurant to anyone looking to try an elite...

So there are mixed feelings regarding this hotel. Firstly i do not understand why it is promoted as a 5 star hotel. It is not a 5 star service.

The staff are friendly and helpful. They communicate well in English language and understand well. The front desk is open 24 hours in a rotating shift. They welcome and greet you whenever you move in and out of the hotel. For people with vehicles, parking is available. The roof top bar was ok and the bar kept was friendly as well. The pool needs to be maintained better. The rooftop view was good. Note that there is a cemetery right next door. Not very noticeable, but it is there. The rooms were well kept, we had a balcony however it was locked and not accessible. The toilet was clean and well maintained. They provide 2 small water bottles daily to the room. The whole room was carpet-floored. A sofa is there. Work desk, chair and mini bar without any items. You can take breakfast from the first floor breakfast buffet. Can have it included in your room price or pay separately for approx 10$.

That's the pros of the place. Let's dive into cons.

The exterior of the building needs to be repainted. Cause it is holding years of dust which have become mud due to rain. The color of the paint has faded overtime. The lobby and reception desk also needs a makeover. Most importantly you need to update your melody playlist.

As for the rooms, the whole room needs to be upgraded. The interior gives old vibes with brown colored furniture everywhere. The carpet needs to be upholstered at this point as vacuum does not seem to do the job. Housing keep was subpar as the 2 weeks we spent, the linen was only changed twice. The changed linens would have different smudged spots on them.

The breakfast buffet was most disappointing of all. The options were very limited. Most of the time portions were controlled which means if for example they are serving french toast, the buffet will have exactly 4 slices, once it is finished then they will again bring another 4 slice out. Keep in mind this is a 5 star hotel buffet. Coffee, tea, milk all these pots will be there, but would remain empty. They will make the coffee on request or in some cases the pot will have coffee but it would be cold. The food, from what they have is really good. But I am really not a fan of this portion controlled distribution. The most bizarre even was everyday some senior staff would have breakfast from the breakfast buffet along with the guests. This included the hotel manager as well. Only one young male staff was very friendly and helpful in the buffet area. Others were not really that interested with the guests. WiFi was ok, but it disconnects you automatically every 6 hours and you have to re enter the password again and log back in.

I have been to a lot of hotels in colombo and my usual stay is at the Fairway which this time just happens to be too far away from the location i had to commute every morning. I could have paid the same price and got much better hotel experience from there. Putting a 5 star hotel tag, charging the customers 5 star room rates and not getting that 5 star service gives all bad vibes. In the long run, you will loose customers.

This was a long post and if you have made this far, thank you. I hope the hotel management would take this feedback positively...

DO NOT STAY HERE. First of all we were made to pay straight away which was the first warning sign, we checked into our room which at first glance looked good until you saw all the chipped paintwork old torn carpets and bathroom door which was too big for the frame causing a nasty scrape on the ground and making it difficult to shut. The amazing blue rooftop pool as pictured on their ad was actually green and tiny we didn’t want to risk using it the rooftop terrace itself was also very small we decided to order food here which for the price was very very average I stayed here with a friend and we both got food poisoning although we are not sure if it was definitely from the hotel food it would not be surprising. You only get one pillow and the beds themselves are very uncomfortable causing us both neck and back pain, the balcony was sealed off so we had no access to that which was disappointing, you are also given 2 small water bottles a day for free but we were not told this until later in our stay and we were actually paying for the water which was supposed to be free not only this it was costing 800 rupees for 2 small bottles when we could go into town and get 2 much larger bottles for 400 rupees. There is also a 10% service charge on everything and a considerably larger taxes and extra charges section to each receipt. Really feel like we were ripped off and by no means should this place be branded a 5 star hotel. Compared to other places we’ve stayed in, across the island not only was this the most expensive but it was by far the worst, please listen to this review and do not stay here. The worst and most annoying part of our stay was on the second last day where we heard squeaking from the utility cupboard either from a rat or a bird this continued through the night so we had little sleep when the issue was brought up in the morning it was treated as a normal occurrence the workers were laughing and joking about it nothing was offered to us not even an apology, I really don’t get how a 5 star hotel can have birds or maybe even rats in the walls and cupboards of peoples rooms it’s so unprofessional and really ruined the end of an amazing trip, I hope this helps people to avoid this place as it is extremely disappointing and a horrible...