The Wishful Thinker — Restaurant in Maidstone

COELIACS BEWARE !!!

We booked a table for 4 on Fathers Days (16th June). When we made the booking we made sure to ensure that the table was booked noting that my son has Coeliac Disease and can NOT tolerate ANY gluten at all. He is extremely sensitive and I made a point of letting The Wishful Thinker know this. We were advised this would not be a problem and a copy of the menu was sent to me by email.

On arrival we again pointed out that my son has Coeliac disease and were careful to order a gluten free main meal. I checked repeatedly that everything on the plate on the gluten free. All was fine.

However, when it came to dessert. Which on the menu was noted as being gluten free (I have attached photos), I did not make such a fuss. We joked with the waitress that this was what he would have, as it was the only gluten free item on the menu. He had just put the last piece of biscuit in his mouth when our waitress and her boss came rushing to the table, saying DON'T EAT IT!!

It appears that the menu should have read Gluten Free option available (see photo, this does NOT say option!). At this point my son is starting to have stomach cramps. The lady supervisor then proceeded to yell at the waitress that it was her fault, and to tell us, that the kitchen was extremely busy and these things happen. Not only is this extremely unprofessional, it was also incorrect. It was the fault of whoever wrote the menu, which I assume would have been done, in a quiet moment, when the kitchen was not busy. In any case I do not expect to witness the waitress being yelled at, or to be told that the kitchen was too busy to cater properly for my son.

We did not pay for our meal and the restaurant refunded the deposit we paid.

The reason I have waited so long to complete this review was because I wanted to see how long it would be before my son recovered from the gluten served to him by The Wishful Thinker.

The first week after it happened he slept for about 16 hours a day, didn't leave his room and barely ate.

The following week he was still shattered but managed to get to school for one day. However, whilst there he picked up a bug (Coeliacs disease is an autoimmune disease, so it stops your immune system working properly). He then returned to his bed for the rest of the week.

The week after that he again managed to go to school for one day, but again picked up another bug and again returned to his bed!

So one tiny biscuit has left my son too ill to go to school for 3 weeks (at least)!!! Who know what will happen next week

Food establishments need to be more aware of the impact gluten can have on people suffering from Coeliacs Disease.

My son is 17 and it is getting to the point that he does not want to eat out. This was meant to be a celebration and instead has turned into a real problem.

My son was due to sit is Mock A Levels last week, and has so far been unable to do this.

The Wishful Thinkers failure could have a lasting affect my sons future (these results are used by universities when deciding who to offer their places to), not only for his prospects, but also for his health.

It is just...

A beautiful property inside and out. But the staff are extremely ignorant and rude. They cancled our booking for 23rd of December, the link they sent us didn't work to pay our deposit. So we phoned in explaining two days before our booking the link did not work so they agreed that no deposit was needed and that our table will still be reserved as planned. On arrival we had to explain all of this and had to find our proof of booking as we wasn't even on the system. We were finally seated but could feel it annoyed them that they had to fit us in due to our proof.

The waiter then comes over huffing and puffing slamming our drinks down one by one not even looking at us. We all looked at each other and felt a little uncomfortable Not our female waitress she was lovely and friendly. The male waiter.

10 of us had finished our drinks and dinner and not one memeber of stuff came to the table asking if we needed more drinks etc until finally I asked for more drinks as we were obviously still not finished.

The restaurant was lively and many tables were talking and laughing among themselves as it is christmas eve, eve after all! We were all happy and talking to each other. I accidently nocked my empty glass over as I got up to go to the loo, as I was sat on the corner of the table at a angal as they had to fit us in due to them messing our booking up. The table we were given was not big enough I was on the floor clearing up the mess I made. The waiter comes over and says I will do that, I replied thank you and that I was really sorry. His reply was could you just keep the noise down.

In a lively restaurant that usually do music on a stage I thought that to be odd, so I looked around the room and noticed every table in the restaurant was equally as loud as our table.

After we paid our £350 bill we was then asked to not take pictures at our table as we were disturbing other tables. I'm very observant and like to think I can read a room.

Nobody in the restaurant was bothered by us, in fact other customers were all taking pictures, laughing and eating at their table minding their own business.

But one particular member of staff was on our case the entire evining.

I feel like we shouldn't have even paid for the over priced food. It wasn't all that and the staff just left a sour taste in out mouth.

And the fact that it's Saturday the 23rd with no music on was very disappointing

We didn't even stay for desert due to the unwelcoming feeling we all felt from the second we arrived. It's not our fault they have no communication with their own staff and got our booking wrong.

We have a family chritsmas meal most years as we cant always be together at Christmas and we cut our evining short. We would have loved to had more drinks and desert but didnt want to give this place anymore of our time and money. A beautiful place run by rude and ignorant individuals. Such a shame, if I could put 0 stars I would. I wish we didn't waste our money here but I was to embarrassed to complain and didn't want to ruin our...

Overall we had a really great stay and meal. The hotel room itself was amazing, really clean and very comfortable, the bed was like a cloud, the shower was great and we felt safe and secure. We overhead that it's only been open for 5 weeks so hopefully the standards stay the same over the years.

On assessment from the car park right above our room(Lavender) just before we left, we could see there is a piece of the roof loose/flapping. I don't know if it is being repaired or not, I'm not sure, but ALL night and ALL morning there was a constant banging where it was windy and you could here the loose material hitting above us, luckily we are used to sleeping with noise but it was rather annoying after a few hours. We were going to speak to a member of staff about this during check out, but there wasn't a check out, some people may prefer it this way but we found it to be quite odd to not be asked how our stay was or check if we had to pay anything etc.

The gentleman who I assume is the general manager from the previous evening came across quite rude and snappy a couple of times over our stay, I assume this was when he was overwhelmed or seemed quite flustered, but we just got a snappy "No you can leave" after asking what to do about check out. The rest of the staff we had experiences with were all lovely, but i think just from observation over dinner you could see the staff were very stressed out, people were waiting ages for food and drinks, including us, but there didn't seem to be enough staff.

The food was really really yummy, really fresh and well cooked. They had loads of choices and we will be back again to try other options on the menu. The cocktails were incredible and there was a large selection of alcoholic drinks. It would be nice if there were some more comfortable seating available for if you just wanted a drink, as the restaurant area is huge, but not seating for the bar.

The atmosphere of the place is really cool, very modern and looks very pretty, there is a really nice constant theme throughout the hotel and restaurant which is really lovely.

Overall i recommend anyway to stay for a night or two at The Wishful Thinker. I would recommend going for dinner too but just go with the knowledge that if it is the weekend it will be super...