Somm Wine & Dine — Restaurant in Chiang Mai Province

I know that SOMM has got a lot of 5-star reviews, and I have been anxious to check them out for some time. I finally had a chance to have lunch recently. I have to say that it was all a bit underwhelming. The menu was extensive, as were the wine offerings (of course, my first choice of wine was out of stock… note to restaurants… in the digital age, there is no excuse to have an outdated, printed menu). The food itself was presented well, but just ‘meh.’ I think that other reviewers on Google need to learn the difference between photogenic food and well cooked food. The lamb chops were cooked well, but the portions were tiny compared to the prices charged. The pork (a specialty) was over-cooked. The garnishes were beautiful, but some were cold. 3-stars at best for the food. Service overall was good, and the waitress asked if we wanted all of the mains served together, which I took as a good sign… until they came out one-by-one ha. So a star knocked off for that. The atmosphere was ok, and I imagine that it would be much better at night, but they lose a star due to the incredibly difficult parking in the area (they do offer a few spots at the nearby hotels, but finding them was not obvious). Overall, I give them a 3.5 rating, rounded to 4 because are have the right idea, just not quite there on execution, especially for the prices they are asking. Would I make the trip back into the city for a night at SOMM? ...

We were excited to try this place, an amazing wine selection and steak!! Perfect combo for us!

Unfortunately, we were let down by several things…

Firstly, our wine choice was not available. So we opted for another.

Secondly, the premium steak option was not available.

The Brie and Parma ham starter got a big thumbs down- the Brie was not cheese-y and the pharma ham was cooked. Not a great combo and lacked the Brie flavour.

We asked for a side for the steak to be changed during our starter, only to be told it was too late as they had been made- and that was clear when the steaks came around 15mins after the side of chips were cold- I asked for them to be reheated and they came back overcooked and not edible.

The prices are well above the average restaurant prices in Chiang Mai (maybe 3/4 times the price of a good restaurant or double the price of a decent restaurant. The prices were UK prices in Chiang Mai.

We didn’t realise the restaurant was connected to a hotel, that may explain the overall below average experience as the food and beverage isn’t their core business!

Overall, was hoping for better but all in all an average experience with high end pricing.

Ok the plus, the staff were very attentive - great...

Have now been here three times and it has been getting consistently worse each time. First visit the food was very nice and I rated it 5 stars. Second visit wasn't very good and even the same dishes that had been great during the first visit were much smaller and lower in quality and I updated my review to 3 stars.

And now the third visit. The garlic prawns flavor was ok, but the prawns were a bit overcooked and dry. The muscles were way overcooked and very dry and like rubber with no flavor, the crab spaghetti was also dry and boring, but the worst dish was the carbonara. First of all it's not a carbonara at all as it is not made with egg and cheese, instead it is spaghetti with cream and it didn't taste like there was any pecorino or parmesan cheese added and I couldn't see or taste any pepper. So basically it's spaghetti covered in plain cream with a little bit of bacon.

I really wanted to like this place because the first visit was great, but after trying two more times with the high prices and poor quality of food I will no...