Hotel Riviera — Hotel in East Devon

This is a review of the restaurant and not the hotel.|I grew up in Sidmouth in the 80's / 90's and during that time "The Riv" was the classy place to eat out in town. It served high class food in a 5 star environment. |I visited yesterday and I have to sadly admit that it was potentially the worst dining experience of my life.|Decor is dated, artwork consists of poor quality cheap prints, furniture is akin to a care home. Service is very stoic and lacks any personality. |The menu looked like something out of a 1987 Berni Inn, you basically have 4 choices for your main. - Beef Stroganoff, Turkey Schnitzel, Seafood Linguine or Mushroom Arancini. Starters were Leek and Potato Soup, Beetroot Salad or Mackerel Pate.|I had the Beetroot Salad - No seasoning, diced beetroot, cheap goats cheese. 3/10 |For Mains I had the SEAFOOD linguini - This was an abomination of a main. Overcooked cheap pasta, no seasoning (not even salt/pepper) and salmon flakes .....NO SEAFOOD in sight !! It was single handedly the worst dish I had eaten since Druggie Dave cooked up peanut butter and rice at college in 1986. I think they had added some cream to the pasta but nothing else, just cream and salmon, no salt/pepper and certainly no parsley, white wine, parmesan etc. It was disgusting. |Other people had the turkey schnitzel and although a polite crowd (over80's) it was described as greasy cardboard on a bed of tasteless, unseasoned potatoes. The Stroganoff as shoe leather in cream. |Desserts was a total mess, the staff weren't sure what came with what and in the end it just seemed like things were cobbled together. Did the Pistachio Cake come with cream, on the menu it said it did, the staff insisted it didn't and when one was brought out with cream the raspberry sorbet was missing (apparently you have cream instead of the sorbet). ||Overall, and I don't think I have ever said this.... but this was an utter disgrace of a meal. It was very cheap ingredients, cooked badly and delivered in a chaotic..all be it polite manner. To describe something as seafood linguini and then it to not contain any seafood whatsoever is probably illegal. The whole meal should have been against the law it was that bad. ||Not sure if this is under new management, new staff or something else but there is something terribly wrong at the Riviera which is a shame because it should be up there with the best...

Day 1 was good. We slept well. Comfy bed .|We ate at the Hotel at 17.54. We took advantage of the cheaper cocktails, before we & our two friends ate outside on the hotels terrace. I thought the bill looked weird, it described us as walk-ins? We spent £143.54 including a tip. We left the terrace at 20.01 and retired to bed for an early night.|Day 2 I went to reception and met the lady receptionist from the previous day. She informed me there would be live music on today as there is every Saturday at this time of year. I asked the times of the music, she said 1400-1600 and a barbecue would also be happening. I said that sounds great, we may ask our friends if they would like to pop in before we go out for dinner. At 11.30am we left the hotel and visited our friends at their hotel, then spent the day with them. At about 1700, we all walked back to the Riviera, to find no barbecue and no music. I walked into the cocktail bar and asked the barman, what happened to the live music. He said I don't know, we always have music on a Saturday.|We decided to go for a drink elsewhere and returned to our room at 18.15hrs.|When we got to our room, we found the please clean our room |notice was still on the door. I was filled with dread. On opening the door it was obvious that nobody had been in the room, bed not made, no toilet rolls, no tea no coffee no milk and wet towels.|I was not happy so went to reception. I was greeted by a girl receptionist I had not seen before. I told her what had happened, she said this does not happen at this hotel, I said it has now and what are you going to do about it.|She said I will ensure your room is 1st to be cleaned tomorrow. I said no thanks, we leave tomorrow. We need toilet rolls, tea and coffee and towels now, my wife is making the bed. After 4 visits bringing the missing items ,a different girl told my wife she had just started today at 1700 on her Ist day , she did deliver all the missing items. We checked out at 1100 next morning, they tried to charge us for 2 teas costing over £8, which we never had. I asked for a reduction off the £342.38 we had paid for the room, because of it not being serviced. They said they couldn't take anything off the bill, as it had already been paid. They knocked off the £20 for our car parking - REALLY .|Not the special service...

We stayed at the Riviera for a few days to celebrate a birthday and it was an awful experience from start to finish. Firstly, the parking situation, you have to pay extra for parking, despite paying £500 per room per night. We weren't helped with our luggage (neither was the other half of our party, who included an elderly lady!). I suspect this was due to there only being one visible member of staff, who was doing his best to deal with everything being thrown at him. The room was disappointing, very small despite coming with a premium price tag and the carpet had marks and stains all over it which is not acceptable anywhere let alone a "4 star" hotel. It was otherwise very clean so they clearly have a good housekeeping team. We waited nearly 2 hours for dinner every evening, and much the same with breakfast. One of our breakfasts didn't arrive one morning, claiming the chef had dropped the egg whilst tying to put it on the plate?? So one of our group had to wait even longer whilst the rest of us had ours (on her birthday no less). Most of the staff are lovely and do their best for you, so I would like to point that out. The third evening, I found a maggot in my dessert, which I had to point out to our server as he couldn't or was trying not to see it!! this was quickly taken away and basically acted as if it didnt happen. The only person who apologised was our waitress (Ashka? I think her name was), she went above and beyond to try and rectify the situation. Not one manager came to apologise, not that evening nor the rest of our stay. In fact, after that evening we were pretty much ignored and treated like an inconvenience. We were not charged three drinks upon check out as compensation... one of the drinks put on the room wasn't even ours and had been charged by mistake! Paying over £2k for 4 days and to not have anything else compensated is disgusting. Talitha, on reception along with the lovely waiting staff are the only good things about this place. Ive worked in hotels and hospitality for a long time so I know how hard an industry it can be to work in, and appreciate mistakes happen, that's a given but how its dealt with says everything and that is why I feel I have to write this review. Management need to step up and not leave their staff to deal with situations...