HERA Restaurant — Restaurant in Dublin

This was our second time at Hera. The first time, the staff was very nice. She showed us the special menu and gave us a positive feeling. Because of that experience, I even shared Hera on my food IG account. The service and food were really good and worth recommending to people who love food.

For our second visit, it was our 12th wedding anniversary, so we wanted somewhere special. We thought about Hera again. But this time, we didn’t see the same staff from our first visit. Also, nobody introduced us to a special menu like before. Instead, they only told us which items were not available.

When we arrived, we had to stand for almost 5 minutes before anyone seated us. The staff saw us but didn’t come. We understood maybe it was busy on Sunday afternoon. After finally sitting down, we waited another 15 minutes for someone to come and take our order or even bring water. Finally, a lady (maybe the manager) came after we called her. We told her that nobody came to give us water.

The food also took a very long time. I didn’t order a starter because nothing looked interesting, so I just ordered warm olives. When a staff came to clear the table, she accidentally spilled oil on my white dress. She apologized, which I understood because mistakes can happen. But after that, she never came back to clean the table or sofa where the oil spilled. Another guest beside me helped clean it. Only 10 minutes later the staff came back to clean when the main dishes were ready to serve.

The food was disappointing. The fish burger was very cold. The pasta with chicken meatballs was too simple. I didn’t eat the burger, and I was expecting staff to come and ask if everything was okay. But nobody asked. This is the first restaurant I visited where staff didn’t notice that a customer didn’t touch the food.

We waited until our 6-year-old son finished his meal, and then we had to go to the staff ourselves to ask for the bill.

We still paid the full price, but we left feeling disappointed. Service should be improved at Hera. The front staff should be more approachable and make customers feel comfortable. Normally, staff notice when something is wrong and ask the customer, but here it felt like...

Was really looking forward to experience Hera this evening. Unfortunately, we were deeply dissatisfied. Firstly the restuarant was cold. The menu was average, waiting times were way too long for drinks, upon ordering, to service between courses, clearing times etc. The snacks ordered two arrived together, One not arriving. Then one starter arrived we waited 9 minutes for the attention of the waitress to address that our snack had not come out (should have arrived before the starter) also no sign of starter number two we also named this and another 10-minutes before that arrived so starters ate separately (disappointing no apology for this error, very clear it was not submitted initially when ordered). My partner waiting 25-minutes on a beer. We ordered the fish special to share (sole with lemon butter capers and muscles- €65) presentation was good, however, as soon as we started filleting the sole, we got a very nasty smell from our dish as did our neighbouring table , our fish was GONE OFF!!! We again waited 10-minutes for waiting staff which we raised the issue advising the fish was gone off and smelled horrendously we asked for it to be brought to the chef to smell. Another 10 minutes passed no sign of a staff member returning. I rose from my seat waiting near the kitchen to request the bill and express my disappointment. The manager arrived to our table with the delivery docket advising that the fish was fresh and delivered two days ago and said she didn't get a smell from it. (The docket does not show how it's being stored etc!!!) I reiterated the negligence of the chef serving gone off fish again confirmed by our neighbouring table. She advised she would return to smell the fish. She never returned in fact she sent a young man over with the bill. He was apologetic. We did not pay for the fish obvisiously. Very unprofessional and dangerous! Will not return...

I attended Hera in Dorset Street for dinner last night with 7 of my friends.

We had lovely variety of starters including the scotch eggs in Black Pudding which were excellent.

The main courses included two specials … a fish dish for two and also a venison tagliatelle dish. Two of the diners, however, had to return their pasta dishes as they were cold.

Some of the other dishes were not exactly hot but the diners chose to eat them anyway.

When the two venison pasta dishes were returned they were once again cold. We could not believe how this could happen at a top rate restaurant such as Hera.

As the remaining diners had already finished their meals, the two with the pasta dishes decided not to return them to the kitchen yet again and instead ended up not having any dinner at all.

We were staggered that the simple task of serving food hot could not be completed.

Throughout this entire fiasco, our server was extremely kind and did her best to resolve the situation. The Manager, however, was conspicuous by her absence throughout and seemed unwilling to get involved.

The two diners were extremely disappointed that what should have been an excellent dining experience ended up with them not having any dinner at all.

It will be very difficult indeed to convince my friends to dine in Hera ever again but they did want to leave a review that outlined what the situation is like there.

Hopefully this review will help owners and management to look closely at how their customers are treated and work to massively improve customer...