Croes Howell Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in Wales

It didn’t start off too well, my wife is disabled and there was only one disabled space in the car park, which was occupied, all other parking spaces were full. I had to drop off my wife and friend at the door and park in the allocated field nearby. We walked in through the bar area, which was noisy and crowded, as there was a televised football match showing. We were met by a very helpful and polite young lady, who showed us to our table. The dining area was light and very pleasant, looking out over the outside eating and children’s play area. However, one of the doors was left permanently open, which allowed in quite a chilly draught. We asked if we could move tables and after a quick moment to check, we were escorted to a more suitable table. The waitress soon arrived to take our drinks order and not long after, returned with the drinks and took our meal order. Ten minutes or so later, our starters arrived and very nice they were, we thoroughly enjoyed them. After another quarter of an hour, the mains were served, looking very appetising, but unfortunately they were not very hot and the French fries portion was cold. We requested that could the fries be re-heated and young man took them away after apologies. He returned with them within about two minutes, but we found that they were no hotter than the first time. We gave up on the fries and ate our main dishes. As I have said, not overly hot, but quite enjoyable. All the time we were dining, the noise from the bar area was getting louder and louder, as the football fans were getting excited. We next ordered our dessert, which were first class, very enjoyable. We decided to finish then and request the bill, which amounted, including the tip, to well over £100 which we considered fair for our three meals. As we left through the bar area, we paused to watch a little of the game, England v Slovakia, and as England was a British team playing, even though I am a fluent Welsh speaking Welshman, I shouted a few words of encouragement towards the English side. This provoked an immediate, very hostile response from the patrons of the bar, even though there wasn’t a single Slovakian present. We are quite elderly, my wife and friend being well into their sixties and myself in my eighties, but we were aggressively heckled and one drunken oaf even told my wife, who is English, and her friend, who is Welsh, to Fk O! The management attempted to calm things down without much success, but assured us that this behaviour was something that they disassociated themselves from. I hope this is true and those in the bar had a word put in their ears, however, even so, this is not the type of place that I would chose to frequent, we won’t be returning. It was a most disappointing experience. One shining light was the restaurant staff, they were extremely professional and deserve to work under better conditions! A great shame, as we had hoped to make this venue a regular...

My daughter booked for her Birthday (16 of us). We paid deposits and everyone pre-ordered their food. They called her a couple of days before to see if she still wanted the booking. It was booked for 6pm. When we arrived we could see there was another party booked in another area very close to us. It took nearly 40 minutes for anyone to ask if we wanted our starters. But by this time the other party area was getting very busy and loud. Eventually the starters arrived, and then we heard a really loud "surprise" from the other area, obviously a surprise birthday. One of our party was at the barand heard someone from the other party asking could they use our are too, they were told no. We had to get up time after time to close the outer door, as the other guests kept leaving it open and there was a hell of a draught. After another long wait the mains arrived, minus one which they had forgotten. When asked they said it would be a few minutes. When this arrived (it was soup) it couldn't be eaten as it was so salty and thick not soup like at all. Two people had tikka flatbread and couldn't eat the bread as it was stale and hard, the food wasn't as hot as it could have been. The fish I am told was nice, once they had found their way through a mountain of batter. They then came and said they would knock the price of the soup off, as they had forgotten about it. But the other party was that loud we ended up all having to shout to eachother as we couldn't hear. After a while they came to ask about puddings. A couple were ordered and then we asked for the bill. We were told the manager wanted to bring the bill over. She did so and said she was knocking 20% off (most probably because they realised we hadn't had the dining experience we would have liked. We actually got home at 9pm, which was later than we thought as we were booked for 6pm and everything had been pre-ordered. It was booked earlier as some of our group had to travel back to Manchester and Kettering. My daughter said if she if she would have realised how busy and noisy it was going to be, she may have thought...

The good things: The front of house staff at Croes Howell were all very accommodating, and polite, despite appearing extremely busy.

I'm a chef by trade (7+ years) and I wouldn't have made it this far if I treated customers the way the "chef" here chose to. I only ever even consider writing a review for the places that really excel at what they do, or fail miserably, this review is sadly the latter. The bad: The main reason this place is getting one star, is because despite the fact Croes Howell kitchen had at least two weeks notice, the only vegan option they could possibly offer was a curry (no starters, or desserts). This wouldn't have bothered me so much if it wasn't the worst curry I'd ever had, ever. I'm not even entirely sure of what exactly it was meant to be. The "curry" was basically a casserole with a small amount of curry powder, and chickpeas, served with rice. That's it. There was no coriander, ginger, or anything really. It wasn't even salted. The "chef" thought it was appropriate to serve a dairy based yoghurt with the supposedly vegan curry. The "chef" that made it has clearly never made a curry before in their life. They presumably hadn't tried it before serving, and if they had that just makes it worse if they chose to serve it anyway. The "chef" couldn't possibly think of anything else to put on their menu. If there is any curry there today, and any management read this, I implore you to try what the "chef" is happy to serve here. In the end I just ordered some chips (£4 a bowl). I would have requested a better alternative, but the "chef" couldn't even think of one when writing the menu, so it's unlikely they'd be able to have thought of anything at the time. I'd happily never go there again. A real shame, as FOH staff were great, and atmosphere were all fine, just massively let down by...