The Botanist Cardiff — Restaurant in Castle

Steak was great, lovely atmosphere. Mrs had the chicken kebab, I tried some, it was decent but one of her chicken pieces was hard like a rock. I took a video of her trying to stab it and it bounced around. Wasn't going to complain about this, as most of the food was really nice. The problem is all to do with the service. Waited to be seated, nobody to greet us for a while, but again, wouldn't complain about this, toilet/smoke break or just busy elsewhere, I don't mind too much. After being seated, we were brought menus and drinks orders taken. Then another waiter came to ask if we want to order drinks, which we already had. Again, no issue, this has happened to me when I was a teenager and waiting tables. Order food, as previously mentioned, it was great (mostly)

when we had finished, we were offered a desserts menu, which we had accepted. 10 minutes go by, no dessert menu, he's clearly forgotten....now again, I don't mind too much, these things happen, we all forget things. He eventually notices we've been waiting for the menu so brings them over, and just...chucked it on the table over my shoulder and walked away....hmmm that's a bit rude comsidering. But I get it, maybe he's a bit embarrassed for forgetting for such a long time. When he returns, takes the order abruptly, and then returns again a few minutes later and silently the spoons on the table. I didn't order Desert as I wanted to leave by now, but the Mr's had the cookie dough, tried a bit it was okay. Anyway...I asked for the bill, price is good. Now, I ALWAYS tip well, even for average service and worse food than I received today, but I left nothing. So rude, the bill included a 10% service charge, which even that wasn't deserved. Like I've said, I don't expect perfection, I understand things go wrong. I would have still tipped 20% of the bill even though the chicken was burnt. But if you're in a customer service role, have some customer service. It's a shame because I took some photos of the place and the food and sent them to multiple socials, but in the end told people...

We came here at 18:30 for a Sunday roast. When we arrived we were told that they were out of all of the roast options (even though we called the day before to ask if this is likely to happen and they said it was incredibly rare). As we were looking at the menu, we were then told that they did have roast options, they had managed to prepare items that they had previously run out of. We ordered 3 starters and 2 pork belly and 1 lamb roast. The starters were to die for! The hummus, the calamari and the chicken wings were all delicious. Then the roasts came out. The lamb was beautiful but both pork belly slices were very small and one was about half the size of the other! We commented to the waitress who was very apologetic and said that they would discount us as that was the last of the pork. Then a gentleman came out and offered us some beef in addition to the pork which was very kind. The beef was very nice. We then ordered dessert, 1 chocolate fondant brownie, 1 cookie dough and 1 mango and strawberry cheesecake. The waitress told me that the cheesecake didn't come with pieces of mango and strawberry but was still delicious. I thought the actual cheesecake was mango and strawberry flavour but it wasn't; It was vanilla flavour and the only thing that made it mango and strawberry was the missing fruit! I was really disappointed because the menu is quite misleading and the waitress didn't really explain herself very well. I told the waitress I wasn't happy and she was really lovely and offered to get me something else. I ordered the lemon tart instead and I'm so glad I did because it was probably the best lemon tart I've ever eaten! When it came to the bill we were charged full price instead of the Sunday roast offer so I had to ask for it to be rectified. Overall the atmosphere was fantastic (apart from the music being a bit too loud), the staff were fantastic and despite a few mistakes being made, I still wouldn't hesitate...

Visited 15th Oct 23. 4.30pm. We had booked a table of 4 with friends we hadn’t seen for while who were visiting us. A special occasion. We were shown to our table and told that they had no Sunday lunches left. I could understand this if we were a walk-in but we had booked so surely they should ensure the food is available all day. People were coming in after us to so we weren’t the only booking at that time of day. We were given the limited a la Carter menu they do on a Sunday alongside the Sunday roast menu. We ordered drinks and chose off the menu. The waitress came to take our order. 2 sharing Camemberts please. Ohhh sorry we haven’t got the Camembert. We said what else didn’t they have as this was now turning bad and she said what about the fish and chips? My wife said I can’t see that on the menu so the waitress tried to show her and it wasn’t on there. She said ohh yes we don’t have fish and chips as they have just changed the menu recently and she forgot, So we asked for a few minutes to review the menu again. She came back and said they have some steaks available and we could have this and that with it. We said we would consider it but felt it was a bit of buggers muddle to be honest. At this stage we considered leaving but we had an event booked for 6.30pm and didn’t really have time to find somewhere else to eat. We then ordered alternative starters and hanging kebabs and burgers. The food was nice but the experience very poor. How they can run out of so much food off the menu I don’t know. They have been there quite a while and should know the trends of the city. Camembert has a good best before date so surely you would have some back up stock. We wife and I have been before and experienced them with food items running out but not like this hence me doing the review. Our friends said they wouldn’t bother going back. I hope the management review this situation. No excuses just poor ordering and...