Basalt — Restaurant in Northern Ireland

I can honestly say I have never been so uncomfortable eating a meal in my life. Having booked a table for myself and my husband to celebrate his new job, we arrived to Basalt on Saturday 2nd March to be seated, at what can only be described as a shelf with bar stools mounted to the floor, overlooking the chiefs as the cooked. The shelf was approx 40cm wide and you were unable to put your legs below the shelf due to there not being enough room to do so. I raised my concerns to the server, that this was not a table which I had booked and I would be unable to tolerate sitting sideways through out our entire meal, I informed him that I had a chronic illness, which results in me being in chronic pain and needing adequate seating and room for my knees to go u under the shelf. He returned to say, that there were no other tables available. Had we not been out to celebrate I would have got up and left immediately, however I did not want to spoil my husbands night out, which are few and far between. This results in us having to eat sideways through-out the meal and my clothes smelling like I had worked in the chip shop all night, as the frying steam and heat hit us directly as we were so close to the cooking area. I was in agony throughout, which is a shame as the food was amazing, if only we had been able to enjoy it. We had intended to stay for the rest of the night and have drinks to celebrate, however due to how much pain I was in having sat, trying to eat like this, I had no choice but to leave to get home and take pain killers to try and relive it. I again mentioned my issues when paying for my meal, to offered a meaningless apology. No offer of compensation was made. Am am shocked that they would expect anyone to be seated for a meal this way and that quite frankly it was apparent that they only cared about squeezing as many people in as possible for dinner to boost profit! Why do they even take bookings for a table, to which you have to pay a deposit for it, if there are no tables left?? I will...

22/04/22 Ordered from the QR code on the table. Our pork belly never arrived. After all our other dishes arrived a dish of meatballs arrived to the table, with no explanation. we explained that we had already received our meatballs and where waiting on pork belly. After another half hour of waiting we asked where the dish was, the waiter then explained that they were out of pork belly. The waiter thought that was expectable and was about to walk away when we asked what we could have instead as we had already payed for it and weren’t going to receive it. We choose the pork tacos as they were the same price.

After this we could then see and hear the chiefs talking and looking at us. Saying “they’ll just have to wait” (as if we hadn’t waited long enough) and “ they are lucky they choose something the same price”. Some of our company at the table were starting to feel uncomfortable with the group of chiefs constantly looking down at us and commenting. The pork tacos then arrived after another half hour, so in total from the last dish we received to the pork tacos arriving we had waited over an hour. Not surprisingly when our pork tacos did arrive they were burnt and looked nothing like the tacos that had arrived earlier to the table before all this happened. I feel the chiefs took their time and done this on purpose thinking we were trouble makes when all we wanted was what a small dish we payed for and never received. This level of service isn’t acceptable anywhere else, so why is it...

Went to have dinner here to round off our mini-moon last night. Beautiful looking restaurant and we were seated no problem and asked if we wanted drinks. Ordered prosecco and waited 15 mins. Same waitress that took drink order asked if we were okay so we re-requested the bottle we ordered. It eventually came.

A different waiter then came to take our food order from the very minimal menu - we'd heard good things and were expecting a tapas experience. Instead, a very "Ramore" menu awaited us inclusive of the Chilli Penne that appears across all of the chains menus. We ordered starters, a main course and a side each. Starters came out one by one in 10 minute intervals. So my husband had finished his before mine had arrived and during eating mine, the sharing one appeared. Whilst I appreciate this is how tapas arrives, nobody stated this would happen and the menu does NOT state tapas. The mains came shortly after we'd finished our starters together and only one side arrived - my side was missing. Did appear on the bill however so i was not very happy! We were also charged for not wearing masks when we arrived - which we were!! Bill challenged and corrected efficiently but the experience really wasn't what we expected, especially given that the restaurant was at HALF capacity due to the restrictions. Such a shame as the food was beautiful - service really let the...