Haar Restaurant & Rooms — Restaurant in Scotland

The occasion was a friends birthday, 8 of their close friends having a lovely day in St Andrews with the highlight to be a lunch tasting menu at HAAR by Dean Banks to which we had book long in advance and held confirmation email of said booking. The unfortunate issues began 24hours earlier when the booking party and whose birthday it was received a phone call stating they could no longer honour any lunch bookings due to staff shortages but could fit us in at 5pm. They acknowledged it would be the pricier dinner menu but would make sure we had a lovely experience and so we all discussed and agreed this was OK. What a mistake that was, one that was soon to be a costly disappointment and one that ruined the whole birthday experience. We all opted (as there was no choice) for the tasting many at £105 which also had upgrade options; £25 for a half lobster, £10 for wagu instead of sirloin etc. Pricey, maybe some might think so but we were all food lovers and knew we were now at dinner not lunch. The first few courses were actually very nice, portion sizes OK for a tasting menu and everyone was enjoying the meal, however it all changed when the sirloin / wagu & vegetarian options were presented. The steak came with a piece of mini courgette. The steak measured 7cm x 2cm x 2cm and was tough and unseasoned. This we thought was bad until the £10 upgrade wagu was presented, this was even smaller, a disgrace. It was sent back as also very tough to cut through with the provided steak knife, definitely not how wagu should be. However the last straw was when the vegetarian in our party was presented to two slithers of the small mini courgette on a small bed of wilted kale. £105 tasting menu and the main course is a small plate of vegetables! All these issue were given to the front of house manager who just kept saying, “I’ll need to speak to Dean”. £2500 bill with wine and food, yet Dean never once appeared to address the complaints and the manageress instead stated “Dean said it is what it is, that’s the dishes”. She then accused us of lying and we never originally had a lunch reservation. The management attitude was disgusting. All of our party are business owners from retail to hospitality, corporate to international finance and none of us had ever experienced such poor customer service following justifiable complaints. As nothing was rectified and we were being spoken to so poorly, the head party sadly paid the bill including the service charge just so we could all leave yet it still ruined the rest of our evening. If this is Dean Bank’s attitude to local diners spending such amounts, it really...

We came for the lunch tasting menu for my wife's birthday. The food was excellent - no qualms about it whatsoever, though I would've like to have tasted a few of the ingredients in a couple of dishes which were overpowered by other flavours.

Location-wise, it is really nice to be nearly across from the Old Course and have a easy walk/view of the West Sands. It is a bit on the outskirts of the centre of the Town and not terribly convenient, but nice all the same.

The service in the restaurant left much to be desired. Some of the staff were wonderful (Alex even remembered that we came for a birthday and added a candle to my wife's dessert!), but that was the extent of the welcome we felt. If I were to fault anything:

Despite my noting on the reservation we came for a birthday, it went unacknowledged apart from Alex's gesture noted above and despite the effort in presentation of the food and space. This more or less fit with the lack of attention we received after the initial welcome - it felt like we were an afterthought to the wait staff.

It was disappointing to see the head chef come out and greet the other tables and explain dishes but not to ours. This despite us being one of two parties in the whole restaurant the better part of the first hour and the only one not approached.

The waiter/host had no business acting shocked and taken aback when I asked the charity donation be removed from our bill as we already give to other charities. A simple 'sorry' would have sufficed in response, not the commentary we received. I almost wish I had reduced the service fee at that point as I felt 12.5% (on top of VAT, not before) may not have been deserved after all.

Would I go back? I don't know. I loved the food and want to recommend it to others, but the lack of care and service for a nice restaurant like Haar was shocking to the point that I'll likely stay away for...

I'll start on a positive; my wife and I had the dinner tasting menu, which was absolutely excellent.|In addition, we ordered the scallop with king oyster mushrooms, which was also excellent. ||The 'Black Friday' deal we had bought also included an overnight stay in a 'cosy double'. |We've stayed in many hotels where the description was 'cosy double', but this took the term to a different level, with barely any room to move around and almost zero storage/hanging space. That said, the bathroom was lovely and almost spacious by comparison.||We arrived at The Haar to be greeted by a very pleasant young woman who carried out the check-in formalities and showed us up to our room. She explained that there was an issue with the lock but showed us how it operated, etc.|There was no issue locking when we left a short time later,but when we tried to do the same before going down for dinner, we couldn't lock the door. I reported this to one of the front of house staff, but he experienced a similar problem and stated he would ask his manager to look at it if we'd like to take a seat downstairs. ||A few minutes later, the manager appeared, declaring that the door was now locked and implied incompetence on our part. I reminded him that his colleague also experienced the same issue.|Then the manager (still don't know his name) asked to see our voucher. We told him we didn't have a voucher, but we have emails confirming room and table bookings. However, he insisted we needed to produce the 16 digit reference or risk being charged again, despite the fact that we'd shown him our cr card payment on the banking app.||To cut to the chase, this chap was borderline rude and despite clear proof of purchase and confirmation of bookings, failed to deal with a situation that was all of his and The Haar's administration system's doing, not ours.||Needless to say, we won't...