Botanical — Restaurant in Dublin

Visited here on Friday 6th January 2023 with six other friends to try their Bottomless Supper and was incredibly disappointed. Our table was booked at 6:45pm with our first drinks order taken at 7pm which we had to flag down a server for. The drinks then took about 20-ish minutes to get to our table, the restaurant wasn’t particularly busy for a Friday night with one other table of 7 and a few tables of two/three dotted around with four servers and what seemed to be two managers also on shift with two bartenders.

We then had to ask to place a food order, some ordered starters / mains and others ordered mains / desserts which were told wasn’t an issue. I’d asked multiple times during the booking process if they required a pre-order but we were assured this wouldn’t be necessary. The wait for food wasn’t long at all and probably the only good thing about this experience, however the kitchen had cooked everything at once so starters and mains were bought out together. Those who had starters their mains were just sat under a heat lamp waiting to be served once they’d finished. The Seafood Linguine & House Burger were good from what I was told, and so we’re the Wings starter. We ate around an hour into our visit which wasn’t too much of an issue for us, but the rules on the menu state that if the table was needed after we only have two hours…

The BBQ ‘pulled pork’ Bao Buns were arguably the worst thing I’ve ever eaten. The menu states the buns are steamed which isn’t out of the ordinary but both the filling and buns were cold, as if they’d been defrosting at room temperate. It had been about 2 minutes and we were trying to get a servers attention, to ask if this was right, as ‘steamed’ implies an element of heat. I encouraged the server to touch my food and feel how cold it was and she maintained the stance that these were supposed to be served cold.

She asked if we wanted something else but we had other plans and didn’t want to have to wait for another meal to cook. Subsequently other members of the party who had ordered this as a main decided not to bother and instead we asked for a few bowls of chips, with our starter plates and empty glasses still at the table.

They then bought out our desserts without asking with our table still full of plates and glasses. I have a photo time stamped at 19:43 when our mains were brought to the table and by 19:58 our deserts were on the table. The desserts were okay, and I only say this because the rest of us were incredibly hungry at this point so about two people finished their pudding. Following our complaint it became very apparent that the floor staff were avoiding our table, as we figured if we weren’t going to eat food we’d get our moneys worth in drinks.

When it came to paying to bill, we had been left for about half an hour and we had to get up and ask a member of staff for the bill. One member of the party had one glass of Prosecco and didn’t eat any part of her meal, four people didn’t eat their main courses and 5 people didn’t eat their deserts. Everyone who ate all aspects of their meal were happy to pay the full 40€ but the rest of us didn’t deem it very fair when the service had been so terrible along with the food. The server then discounted our 280.00€ bill by 17.65€ which didn’t even cover the full uneaten meal and glass of Prosecco. The server asked if we wanted to pay for the aspects of the meal we’d eaten which we initially thought would’ve been more expensive because the point of bottomless packages is ‘save’ money on drinks. However it actually worked out cheaper for us to pay for what we’d eaten and drank than to pay the full 40.00€.

We agreed to all pay 34€ each, as we had been in the restaurant for longer than our allotted ‘bottomless’ time however I’m unsure if this was an intentional move or if they’d just forgotten. It was our first night in Dublin and a Birthday Meal and it’s safe to say we were so unbelievably disappointed.

It seems the other reviews about this restaurant were...

This place is very beautiful and very comfortable to dine in. Unfortunately that's where the good ends. I have been staying in the hotel and like to give places many chances before reviewing. I have gone for two breakfasts and one dinner. Let's start with the two breakfasts. The food was very basic for what it is and takes a long time just to be made. Considering it's breakfast items 30 plus minutes is excessive. Where I find real issues is the service. They have many servers working at once while I was there for breakfast today I counted six. But good luck trying to get their attention. After being sat it took 25 mins before someone came to take our order. This was the same every one of the three chances we gave them. Now I will say the servers are friendly when you finally talk to them. Nothing is pre thought of if you don't ask they won't bring it, and good luck asking when they avoid coming to the table. We ordered coffee and a mocha and an orange juice. They come after 10 mins and put coffee in the cup bring no cream or spoon to stir the coffee. After 15 minutes they inform us there is no orange juice. Why that took 15 minutes to figure out orange juice was sold out boggles the mind. After bringing the two breakfasts I wanted to order a few more things like water as our water jug was empty but could not get them to pay any attention for nearly 20 minutes. I had to get up and go to the bar to order water and napkins for the table. The food is just ok very basic zero seasoning to speak of. But the bread is seriously hard to cut like I had to get a steak knife the first night to eat it. Also got the bread and pastry platter. 15 euro for 5 things complete ripoff considering it's one piece of toast one cinnamon roll with no cinnamon one scone one croissant and banana bread piece. All of which was mostly flavorless and a bit stale. You also have to pay at the bar when you are done as despite having 6 to 7 servers working for 6 active tables they don't bring the bill over. The dinner was much of the same but the food for the dinner was particularly flavorless just bland. Had all the looks of 5 start dining and none of the rest. This place I feel is only busy as people from the hotel are constantly changing bringing in new guests to be lured by the beautiful decor. Don't waste your money you are close to O'connell street where there is so many restaurants of good caliber. If your in a pinch and need food at the hotel order Uber eats seriously it's the...

As a local to the area, recently visited Botanical to see if this relatively new restaurant is "one of the best in the city" as they claim on the website. Unfortunately was very disappointed.

The menu is limited but I guess ok if viewed as a side service to a hotel. We ordered a few different things, all were ok but in no way a top culinary experience. Things stated as 'seared' were not so, sourdough bread very much looked and tasted like grocery store toast, missing items from order etc. What did stand out as a positive was the cocktails and jungle themed decor (although pales in comparison to places like The Ivy). What was the worst was the service. It was not non-friendly, just very incompetent. The service staff would ask a question and immediately rush away without consideration to any questions or if we wanted to order other items. Initial drinks order took 3 attempts to get right. When asked what the special was, again staff rushed away to the kitchen area and came back with a single word response "lamb". Ok.. served how, with what, what's the price? It didn't seem to occur to them at all that this would be relevant information and they just again rushed away. At the end of the visit, was first given the bill of a different table and when questioning this, server seemed visibly irritated and rushed out to get it corrected. I could understand the rushing away if the place has been busy but more than half the tables were empty and there was more than one server working. One experienced professional could have handled all customers with relative ease. The final disappointment was using the customer bathrooms. This required a 5 digit code from the reception and when going into the bathroom, I could not believe how it could look so nice but smell so bad! This was not some slight stench but like raw sewer. I seriously considered holding it in to go to a close by pub (not know for rosy smells there either!) for my business as it was the worst bathroom smell I've experienced in my life!

I would not recommend this place to anyone who wants more than just a hotel style burger before heading upstairs to bed or grab a few beers/cocktails on the patio. It's sad to see a new place like this that has so much potential not make the most of it when simple improvements like training their staff could easily elevate the experience to the customers. I sincerely hope...