The Korean Cowgirl at Cave Hotel — Restaurant in Borough of Swale

Oh my word. Where to start, I only wish we'd been on Google and TripAdvisor to read the reviews beforehand, because I can state with absolute confidence that every bad review I have read about this restaurant is likely 100% true.

We stayed at The Cave (which is stunning btw) for my partners 30th and decided to book a nice meal at the Korean Cowgirl. Big mistake.

(The worst thing is, the restaurant knew it was her 30th).

Firstly, it felt more like a nightclub than a restaurant. We were handed an old tatty looking menu, and both decided to order the Brisket.

3 awful looking pieces of meat turned up on each of our plates (at £35 each) and the thing I noticed immediately was the overpowering smell. The closest thing I can liken it to is diarrhoea. We both looked at each other, tried one mouthful and pushed our plates away. It tasted as bad as it looked and smelled. Vile.

The waitress asked us if we'd like her to remove it from the bill (would have thought this was obvious) and informed us she'd be back to take our order, but she didn't return. In the meantime the manager (a Portuguese man) came to remove the Brisket from the table, and when we told him what was wrong with it we were greeted with a rude attitude and he just sort of made a face and raised his eyebrows, then asked us if we've ever had Brisket before.

Tired of waiting for the waitress to come back we flagged down a waiter and both ordered the Signature Smash burger.

My burger arrived, but my partners didn't. It was a sad, small burger, dripping with grease and just slapped in the middle of the plate looking like someone had punched the top of it. An absolute mess. I had no choice but to start eating it so it didn't go cold, whilst my partner waited for hers and watched me eat.

15 minutes later, still no food for her. We called the waitress over who told us she'd find out what had happened. Close to 10 minutes later she eventually returned and stated that because we had ordered a gluten free bun for my partner the chef had to scrape the grill (!?) Why not tell us that initially? Why not bring our food out together?!

So almost 25 minutes after my food arrived and had been eaten, my partner got her burger. Another sad, sorry little burger that was dripping with grease. She had to literally PICK the gristle out of it.

The waitress then came to the table and asked if the burger was OK, to which we replied "No, it's really not".

I then went on to explain how disappointed we are, how all we wanted was to have a nice meal for my partners 30th and it had been horrendous. I informed her of the managers attitude too, which she must have mentioned to him as he returned to our table as nice as pie and offered us a free drink.

Eventually we just ended up paying for a bottle of wine and two portions of fries.

I am mortified that The Cave would have this restaurant on their property, especially given so many terrible reviews on here.

One 30th Birthday...

Afternoon Tea…

I visited for afternoon tea with my husband and paid £40 per person for an afternoon tea with a glass of champagne. The service was very good and the waitress was lovely as was the restaurant itself, but that’s where the positives ended.

We were offered tea or bubbles before we started and we opted for the bubbles, we paid an extra £10 per person for a glass of champagne and we got a half of a glass of what I suspect was Prosecco.

When the afternoon tea arrived, I was gobsmacked, a traditional afternoon tea comes with sandwiches, pastries and scones. What we got was totally and utterly unacceptable. The savoury element was a tiny arancini ball, and two very small pieces of bread with hummus and a cream cheese topping. Photo one is what is advertised for their afternoon tea on X (formally Twitter). The reality of what you got is in photo two plus an additional scone that came after. I have had afternoon tea several times in other places and have never been so disappointed. I don’t know how the waitress kept a straight face when she brought it over because if it were me, I would have laughed! Adding insult to injury the teeny tiny little meringue with shop brought, there is no way that was a home-made meringue and surely that has got to be one of the easiest things to make.

The pot of tea arrived once we had finished our “afternoon tea” whilst we appreciate we opted for bubbles first, we really didn’t think there was going to be such a long wait for the actual tea!

I emailed the restaurant to give constructive feedback and I have not had the courtesy of a reply, had they acknowledged the complaint I would not have had to leave a...

We have stayed at The Cave and been to the Firepit a few times now and have absolutely loved it so when we found out a new restaurant was opening we were really excited. We decided to visit for our anniversary. We'd actually booked at the wrong one, we booked the Canterbury one but they were quite accommodating and seated us anyway. The cocktails are £14 each which is absolutely extortionate, if I'm paying London prices i expect to receive one of the best cocktails I've ever had, this wasn't the case it actually tasted quite watered down and very dull in colour for an Espresso Martini. We ordered the £60 platter and the sweetcorn which we waited a fair while for and it come out cold, the waitress offered to replace it but we'd already waited so long we just carried on with it, we sent the sweetcorn back as that was inedible. The table next to us had sent their food back also which validated our concerns. I'm not quite sure what has gone wrong with this place, a mixture of inexperienced staff and a lack of training perhaps. The fact that they put on their receipt "if the service was s*%t, don't pay the tip!" that shouldn't even be an option, at those prices the service should be spot on and your customers should be happy to tip. Either way we were both incredibly disappointed and it's ruined "The Cave" brand...