Tides Restaurant & Voyager Lounge Bar — Restaurant in St. Brelade

Trip advisor won't allow me to leave a negative review, apparently someone complained, I wonder who? I shall leave my review here instead? The review I tried to post is as below from Sept 21. It's honest and fairly represents my experience. I question Tripadvisors impartiality if you're not allowed to leave a negative review!

My review

I have absolutely no idea how this restaurant is rated number 1 for St Aubin on Trip Advisor.

If I wanted fast food I'd have gone to a fast food restaurant. We sat at our table at 8pm, we were offered the wine list and food menu within 10 seconds. We asked for the cocktail menu which they brought. We ordered 2 cocktails, mine just a g&t so not taxing.. then.. about a minute later they came to take our order. I pointed out at we hadn't had our cocktails yet so they went away..... they then came back a couple of minutes later to take our order... we ordered, even though cocktails hadn't arrived. I ordered a bottle of white. That came at the same time as the cocktails. It clearly hadn't been chilled, but we had our cocktails and it was in a big ice bucket so thought, no matter, it'll be fine.

Waiter came and poured my wife's wine glass... so high it was almost overflowing (I mean, really?) I stopped him pouring mine. I ordered another g&t as the wine was still warm.

Food was fine to be fair, nothing to fault, but clearly they just wanted us all gone. The clientele was for the most part aged and by 8:30 there was basically us and another couple left in the restaurant.. By 8.40pm we were ushered into the bar so they could all close up and go home.

We stayed at the hotel, it's a nice hotel but it's all the same staff as doing the breakfast service. At breakfast the waitress tried to take my wife's plate "WHILST SHE WAS STILL EATING!"

Restaurant really needs to brush up on the waiting staff. We were there for 3 nights and generally found them to be disinterested. Front desk staff were great, but this is a review about the restaurant. Maybe a side effect of the general lack of staff available in this industry currently?

When I'm paying 160 quid for 2 courses and a few drinks I don't like to be strong armed through the meal, it's an occasion and one to be savoured,...

Arrived at 19.00, didn't get a menu until after 20.00, despite asking 3 separate members of staff. The Autumn menu was so so, but reasonable value, althougha number of the options were not available by the time they could be bothered to take our food order. Got the impression hotel guests were dealt with first and we has to wait our turn. Either the kitchen was understaffed or the waiting staff, or both. We booked an earlier arrival so we could be away around 10, however the service was slow and the wrong dessert brought out for one person, the apple based dessets were rock solid and pretty dismal. By the end, we managed to get tea and coffee down and were told the petit fours had run out. We left at 11.15, the last to go. It hurts to be so negative but this was a dispiriting performance, in fact there was no-one left to complain to as the staff had disappeared when we gave up and headed home! We've eaten there many times and are writing this one off...

This is a difficult one as expectations were high after dining at restaurant Le Brise at sister hotel Golden Sands. The Somerville hotel is extremely well appointed with expansive views across the bay.

Pleasant welcome and greeting. Now to the food: The scallops starter was delicious. The dessert panacotta was fine. The wine was excellent.

But here's the downside. The steak was dire. Both mine and my wife's were as tough as old shoe leather. My wife's was so full of sinew that actually cutting it with a steak knife was almost impossible (see photo with fork). We were not charged for hers. I think the chef just failed to check the quality of the meat on this occasion. Even mine needed the sinew carved off and out.

Car parking was freely available (thankfully) and the toilets spotless. Lovely bar area with great views.

As for stars it is generous for me to give more than 1 star but the atmosphere and service pulled the...