L'Alcove — Restaurant in Surat Thani Province

Unpleasant experience.

The owner is explaining himself/herself in the menu in bullet points, why it is expensive there. It sounded a little bit ridicoulous, but not so bad until I realized the owner is probably not Thai, but rather someone from the Western world, making a lot of money on that and using those great Thai people as a cheap labor.

Menu is mostly a French/Italian food with European prices. Tastes quite good, but I'm in Thailand and want to eat local food (which is great btw), not an average European restaurant food. But it's a matter of preferences.

Now the worst thing: I had a bottle with a letter for my wife for our first anniversary inside and we had to break the bottle to get it out. We asked a manager/owner, if they can handle this, to avoid generating noise and possible harm on the beach/street. I know it was a weird request, but in a local like that I would expect professional handling of this or a kind denial to do it. Manager/owner accepted the request and after waiting for like 30 minutes she brought back the bottle with a wet ball of paper inside from which you cannot restore anything and lied us, that there was water inside the bottle (which was false, we even have pictures of it before giving it to her) and that she doesn't know what they (Thai waiters) did with it. She didn't care at all about it, she told us, that maybe we can dry it (yeah, sure). The letter is lost now, it was waiting for one year and travelled 9000 km just to be destroyed in minutes. I know, it was probably also our fault to have one of those annoying restaurant requests, but I also felt treated like a trash in an as-people-say best restaurant on the island. I know such mistakes may happen, but I would expect the owner/manager to be at least a little bothered about it and taking the responsibility for accepting my request.

At the end, they forgot about giving us two prosecco drinks we ordered and I think there isn't any toilet inside (I was asking about it and they directed me... somewhere on the other side of the road), which is also unthinkable for the standard of the restaurant.

Thai people are great and I had extremely positive service experience from them, so I don't blame anyone for anything. Please, be proud of your local food and traditions, you deserve that. You don't have to recommend an average restaurant with European food and money-oriented management with average skills as something interesting just because it's European and prices look...

I’ve thought a lot about how and when to write this review. I figured the best way was to write pros and cons and explain why in each. ||Pros: ||-the staff really are great, everyone we met and encountered during our stay were friendly and helpful ||-they worked with the motorbike place next door to help us rent one which was nice considering the scams everyone reads about. ||-the food and wine at their restaurant was tasty and made sure we had a table which was nice ||Cons:||-the beach is not a beach, it’s about shin high for hundreds of feet ||-the hotel isn’t close to anything really the closest beach that is swim able is a good 10 minute motor bike ride away ||-the restaurant is pricey, which is fine, but not to eat at every night ||-the live music, unfortunately this made us end our stay early here and move to a quieter and nicer hotel up in Mae Haad. Every single night of our stay the music was CRAZY loud and we were unable to sleep until it was shut down. On New Year’s Eve we went down to see fireworkS elsewhere and was told the music would be done by 1am. Well it didn’t stop till after 2am and during that time we booked another place to stay. ||-the rooms are basic, no hand towels, no soap to wash your hands and no blanket for the bed, just a sheet which we found odd. ||-the beds are hard as a rock and only have 1 pillow per person. Our 3 nights here were uncomfortable and tiring unfortunately. ||||||We really wanted to love this place considering the reviews were so great, but I never have had to move hotels before in the middle of my stay not even caring about a refund (we didn’t even ask, we just wanted out). I really hate writing a review like this but I feel it is unfair that no review on here actually states how loud the music is. Especially for those who are placed closer to the road. We would not book this place again nor...

For a high price also a more detailed recession. The ambience is amazing also the person on the entry, very friendly and you feel at home. But the service for the price is definitely not good. They don’t tidy the small space which you have, they even don’t know what they serving, so she gave me the beef instead of the pork after asking twice she told me still the wrong thing. There are many small details like that which I not expect in a Thai kitchen but for the prices like that I want to have a professional service. But this doesn’t mean the personal was not friendly they were super friendly. She ask me at the end if it was good and I gave a answer everything out of the beef which we ordered rare but it was more than medium but she couldn’t handle the feedback. THE FOOD: out of the cooking level everything was good also the beef, as a chef I was not 100% sure if it’s a Charolais, by accident I was cooking 3 weeks ago for one week Charolais and it was quite different. But it was good. The springrolls were amazing, I even would say the best one which I’ve ever had. The tuna tartar was super good, the pork with mustard sauce was also super good and would order again and the Duck breast was super tender. So over all a very good kitchen. Ambience: it’s amazing and they have always something happen which is amazing. May the sound is a bit too loud for having a deep conversation. No Go: still Water is even a filtered water which i definitely not expecting in a restaurant like that. But I’m also a freak in water so i can give you a feedback because I’m already measured all the water on PH on microplastics and such the like, the best one you will get in Thailand is Cristal better than...