Kaltur Wine Bar & Restaurant — Restaurant in Newcastle upon Tyne

Had originally reviewed this place as 5*, I stand by that for the food and atmosphere on the evening we were there, however, absolutely disgusted by the Manager here, the same person that served us back in January when we went.

I have been here many times across the two venues in Newcastle since my initial visit so when I was meeting a friend for lunch, it seemed like a no brainer. The friend ended up being ill and having to go to hospital, so we had to reschedule.

At 8am when I got up for work tried to change via the email link and it didn’t work. Tried from 8am - 11am to cancel the booking by phone. Eventually at 11.05 the manager answered. I explained the situation and she said we would still be charged the £20 cancellation fee.

Explained again why we were cancelling and that this was due to the email link not working. She said rules were rules and I had to understand that. She then called me a liar and said the system was working. I asked for her name and she refused to give me it. I asked to speak to the Manager to complain to be told she was the Manager. I asked for Head Office details to make a complaint about the appalling customer service to be told they don’t have one.

Eventually, after 10 minutes, she said she can’t waive it because the system won’t allow it. I suggested she move my booking to later in the day and cancel it which she finally did, but not before saying to me that “next time I really need to give them more notice”. When I again explained that this was a circumstance that was not foreseeable, that I had tried from 8am (4.5 hours before my booking which you are meant to be able to amend or cancel up until 4pm) to cancel the booking via the email link and that if they are going to enforce this policy in a genuine emergency and their system was not working then they should have a 24/7 booking line in case of this. I also pointed out that even though this was an emergency situation (granted not life threatening) I had still had the courtesy to try and contact them where many other people wouldn’t have.

She then said again that “rules are rules”.

After her “computer says no” attitude and total lack of basic customer service skills or empathy in this situation, I will not be setting foot in that...

It’s a Great North East Mystery why there’s two of these open in Newcastle. When we sat down, the group next to us had just finished and were expressing disappointment between themselves at what they’d just eaten. We ignored them, naively optimistic. We had pre-ordered the Paella for £17 pp. One rather small Paella arrived. It was very dry, 4 bits of seafood all together, no saffron, lemon on top that was blowtorched after placement, meaning the Paella itself was blowtorched, thus burning the rice. The whole thing looked like it had been left on the stove and forgotten about, the way the rice settled in the pan it was served in. That must be why you have to pre-order it, so they can cook it for about a million years. It had an overall blunt acidic taste slightly reminiscent of pennies. (A reminder that it was £34). We had ordered a house wine. This is up for debate, but I’ve always assumed for house wine, what’s brought out is best value. Not in Kaltur, clearly, as when we got the bill we were charged with the second most expensive one, so be aware of that. Granted, they have no responsibility to be transparent about that but it’s not the norm and it’s a bit cheeky. The service was very poor overall and the atmosphere was really terrible; what once may have been a nice restaurant now looks tired, with a cheap chipboard-y interior and a rather depressing ambiance. The one advantage is that at least I wasn’t eating the tapas itself - as it looked incredibly rubbish. If you’re like me and enjoy to have things to look forward to, don’t book this place, unless you don’t like yourself or the people you wish to...

Nice food but highly overpriced. My fault, I should have looked at the menus before booking. I must be behind the times, but to me, I'd expect to pay £7-£10 per tapas dish. Here it's about £17 per dish. Service charge auto added to the bill for 2 people, which I wouldn't expect either. Fair enough for a group of 4 or 6 +. And then when I asked the waitress to remove the service charge so that I could determine my own tip (I changed the 10% added, to 8.6% and a round figure), I don't expect that to turn into a back-biting conversation between staff when I'm still in the restaurant either, as if I've done something wrong. The food we had was nice. I just think they've stretched the pricing boundaries for what you get. For £17 per dish I'd say that's a main course price in most restaurants, not a tasting plate. I like small venues, but this felt cramped and not a particularly pleasant environment. We weren't asked if we wanted to hang up our bulky coats either. Good food, so so service, and all felt quite rushed. We were in and out after 5 plates in 45-50mins. Went on recommendation from someone who'd been to the other Newcastle venue, but we're highly unlikely to revisit or recommend...