Talay Thai Kitchen — Restaurant in Great Britain

We were only in St. Ives for one day and decided to try this place for dinner as it was by the water with a good view and the reviews were mostly positive. The front of house staff ruined our dining experience. They don't take bookings and we asked for a table for 3 exactly at 6 pm on a Wednesday. They actually weren't super busy yet, but I very specifically asked for a table by the window. We may have gotten a different table right away but I only wanted a table with a nice view. We were told by a lady at the front of house it would be about a 15-20 min wait. We waited downstairs at the lounge. About 20 min later, a different lady, also working front of house, came and got us to bring us to our table. She took us to a table in the corner, nowhere near a window. I told her we had spoken to a different woman about getting a table by the window, which is what we were expecting. She responded by saying we could be waiting an hour for that, completely unconcerned that we had been told something different by the first person we spoke to. She seemed very impatient with us and made us feel like we were crazy for even making such a request, so we just sat the table we were given. Not even 15 min after sitting down, before our food had even arrived, a table by the window opened up, and was given to another party who was on the waiting list after us. There was absolutely no attempt made to ask us if we would now prefer that table. It would have been easy to move us. Or we even could have waited another 15 minutes for that table, but we were told it would be an hour longer. Most people probably don't care where they sit. But for us it's part of the experience. I won't even discuss the food because I was already put off by the service even before the food arrived. I've had better Thai food at other places, but even so, it's the front of house staff that ensured I will never return. Also, they add a 10% discretionary tip to your bill which goes to staff but failed to mention this to us in case we wanted it taken off. I only noticed once I saw the receipt...

I'm writing this review after our last visit to this restaurant. As a continued returning customer I feel this review needs to be written due to extremely poor customer service by 2 members of staff that has left me quite unhappy and re-thinking my continued business here.

Prior to our last visit this restaurant ticked all the boxes 5/5, we are always eager to return. It holds a special place in our heart so we always try to visit here when in St Ives.

Unfortunately we arrived here at around 19:00 to be told there is no availability and they will no longer be adding to the wait list. We thought fair enough, very disappointed but that cant be helped so we went else where.

One of our favourite drinks is the Thai tea so after our meal we went to the bar below who no longer serve it here, it has to be ordered up in the restaurant.

We go above to the restaurant and ask for 2x Thai teas to take out not thinking it would be an issue to be given almighty attitude by a staff member. This was obviously to much hard work for the staff member to prepare how ever she reluctantly prepared it after stating it wont be happening again.

Another member came around with the card machine, no conversation, no words just placed the reader in front of me where I paid an amount I did not know how much.

Finally the drinks were made where she made a point of placing them on the bar whilst maintaining complete eye contact with me and didn't say a word and turned her back. Rude.

I get that we turned up around 21:00 how ever, having worked in the customer service industry my whole career I know the importance of delivering top customer service from the start of shift to end of shift. Manners cost nothing.

We left a very empty looking restaurant (after being told they were too busy for more bookings) very disappointed and revaluating our continued business here.

The one good thing that came out of this experience was finding a very good restaurant near by, The Beach Restaurant who did amazing sea food and were...

We visited Talay on a Wednesday evening. As they don’t accept bookings, we were told that it would be up to an hour’s wait for a table. We left our phone number and had a call around 45 minutes later and went back and were seated. We then waited 30 minutes; after which I had to ask someone to take our drinks order. Shortly afterwards, a member of staff came to take our food order, but communication between the staff hadn’t been too good as he wasn’t sure if the drinks order had been taken or not. Our food arrived, I had Pad Thai which seemed congealed as though it had been pre plated, sat under a heat lamp and then garnished just before being served. Our “tapas” dishes were chicken satay (3 small skewers of chicken and a very small portion of peanut sauce for £6) and veg spring rolls (3 for £4.50). My partner ordered chicken Penang curry, and ordered egg fried rice, which was just boiled rice with some egg yolk added. We had to ask for water for the table, and had to wait for so long for any service. I felt so sorry for the staff, there were 15 or 16 tables, and only one member of staff taking orders whilst the other ran the food out and cleared the tables. We were discounted by the cheapest item on the bill as a gesture of goodwill for the slow service, but I do think Talay is a victim of its’ success and also the fact that there is a lack of return customers due to it being in a holiday town helps with the continued success. If you don’t mind waiting a long time for a table, and a very understaffed experience for pretty average food, go for it. 2 more servers and a robust booking system would do this...