Talardy Hotel — Restaurant in Wales

Truly awful but also very bizarre experience. Had booked table for large family gathering. In arrival were told very limited menu due to a supplier issue. Ok, odd, would have nice to have been warned and given the option to cancel but ok. Asked for a tray table for high chair - one was brought that was absolutely filthy. Ordered drinks and a child’s starter as he was very hungry. Half the drinks came, the other half didn’t, and no starter. After chasing numerous times everything came, two of the drinks were wrong, got there eventually. Waitress who took our order for food said she wanted to check they had everything before she took our order -checked - had everything on limited menu, great. We were warned though they waiting time of 30 mins as they only had one chef in the kitchen - again, if they had such staffing problems would nice to have been warned, you are starting to wonder if that is the real reason for the limited menu, but ok. An hour later the waitress comes over and says one of the meals we ordered isn’t available. It was the same lady who had checked and told us they had everything which I pointed out and she got defensive and said “well we did when I checked, we don’t now”. Such an odd response. Oh and they don’t have any salad for the burger but they do have salad for all the other meals. Why only tell us now when food about to come out? Wasn’t sure how that worked and didn’t fancy a burger in a bun and chips but no lettuce, no tomato, nothing, but I was ravenous, ok. Meals came, took 10-25 mins for them all to come out so had to start eating at different times which is annoying. No salad with the macaroni cheese, the lasagne or the hunters chicken. Literally weren’t even told this - did they think we wouldn’t notice?! Macaroni cheese tasted like out of a tin, no truffle or any of the accompaniments on the menu. Pie was disgusting. Childs sausage and mash wasn’t touched by very unfussy child - want surprised, was fake mash and all tasted disgusting. Complained to manager who, fair enough said he wouldn’t charge for uneaten meals and would take 50% off everything else. He did make an odd comment saying that the waitress had accidentally ordered a vegan mac and cheese which was why it was disgusting. Wtf? He kept stressing though that he had a full compliment of 3 chefs so he didn’t know why I had been told otherwise. I later found out from some of the staff that this was a lie - he had one chef and had moved bar staff into kitchen to help. Why lie? Whilst talking to the duty manager, the chef overheard me talking about the quality of the food and came over and mouthed off at me - totally bizarre and unprofessional, said all his staff had walked out and I should feel sorry for him then walked off, weird, manager apologised. Then a very very odd thing happened. The evening was supposed to be my mums treat, so she went up to pay. She had already paid £100 deposit and bill work discount came to £74. Tell you what said the manager, let’s call it quits. My mum doesn’t like to cause a fuss so agreed with this. I was disgusted at this so went to speak to the manager. At this point the manager had a meltdown. Said I was entitled and aggressive and that I had been a nuisance since I arrived, and just launched into a torrent of abuse at me. Total nonsense and just total bizarre. Seemed to be having some kind of breakdown. He also said I had intimated children. Which children I asked? This member of staff standing next to him he said. Firstly, she wasn’t a child, odd thing to say. But I asked her if I had intimidated her and she clearly said no. The manager - who by the way refused to give me his name but other staff told me was Tim - told me that he couldn’t refund the money as it was paid online. Then he said he could refund it but only online not onto a card or cash - no problem with that. Eventually he gives me the refund in cash. So why say you can’t? In summary - an awful experience from start to finish. Needless to say, avoid at all costs. No redeeming...

I am very Sadly editing my former 5 star review (which I have left on at the bottom of this review so you can see how your standards have slipped)

We booked for Christmas dinner to take away the stress of cooking as this was our first year with a new baby and my partner has been on deployment all year so we wanted to enjoy every moment. Unfortunately we were left absolutely devastated at the experience we had at the Talardy this year.

We arrived at 3pm the member of staff at the door pointed to our table without so much as a Merry Christmas. We waited and waited but nobody came so we made our way to the bar where I saw a member of staff and asked if we were to order drinks at the bar or would someone take our order, he said he would send someone over which he did. Our starters finally arrived before our drinks there was no butter for the pate we asked the waitress who looked at us like we were a huge inconvenience before going to get a pile of butter portions and slamming them on the table. By this point we’ve encountered 4 members of staff without So much as a smile or Merry Christmas.

Once starters were cleared we waited over an hour for our mains asking various members of staff that never got back to us to say how long the wait would be or offer another drinks order while we waited.

The mains finally arrived, we had ordered extras for the table which didn’t arrive (cauliflower cheese and pigs in blankets) I asked the waitress if they were to follow and she answered ‘no but tell me what you want I’ll go and get it’. The beef was over cooked and extremely thick cuts the vegetables were under cooked so much so we couldn’t cut the cauliflower. The plates were warmer than the food. None of us finished our meals. I also asked for a knife as I only had one on my setting and this had been used during my starter the young boy came back with a very small knife and said this is all I can find.

Nobody came over to see if our meal was ok so we complained to the waitress that cleared our plates but she didn’t seem concerned at our comments and just said Thankyou for your feedback.

We then waited a further 40 minutes for desert. We asked various times how long it may be but again the staff said they would go and find out and never returned. During this time we asked for a jug of hot water to heat babies bottle and again was made to feel like we were an inconvenience. My partner asked again about how long puddings may be as nobody had returned to let us know and the member of staff said I don’t know. My partner said what are you going to do about that and he said to be honest mate I don’t know.

The puddings arrived my cheesecake looked like it had been dropped and put back on the plate the ice cream on the brownies had melted into a soup like consistency due to the plates being so warm.

I have always had a nice meal at the Talardy but this experience has left me utterly disgusted and we will not return.

I have worked in hospitality for many years and I have worked in situations of extreme stress when staff have walked out or not turned up etc but it’s an unwritten rule that the show must go on. Customers have paid good money to enjoy their experience in your venue you must make the effort to ensure they have a nice time you never show your customers how fed up you are or make them feel unwelcome. The customer service was beyond bad and the food was even worse.

I will be writing a formal letter of complaint to accompany this review.

Please see below my former review made from a previous visit

Absolutely lovely! There was 7 of us last night as my in laws were visiting from Scotland plus my parents too, we all had such a lovely time. All the staff are friendly and the food really good value the portion sizes are great! We always come here for special occasions because we’ve always had a lovely experience every time. I have picked up a Christmas Day Menu and plan to book for Christmas Day as soon as my partner is back from deployment at the end...

We booked a few days before coming here, and paid in full in advance. We had been promised a particular room by Michelle on reception, a room which had a separation bedroom for the children. We were all pretty exited on the journey up, only to be told at reception, by Michelle, that although we had paid in advance, and the room had been booked to us, we had been moved... Not once or twice but three times. The room, which we are in at the moment has barely enough room to swing a cat. One room with a double and two singles jammed in. The room is cold but has an industrial fan heater that is too loud to be left on while we sleep. The shower head is black with mould. All in all, a very poor experience and 100% will not come here again and would advise anyone to avoid.

An update having been in the room a little longer. 2 very small sachets of sugar for a family of four, two tea bags and 8 sachets of milk, four of which were already torn and leaking milk when picked up. To say we're disappointed is an understatement. Pretty much spoilt our weekend

In response to the feedback from the general manager...you should get your facts straight before dismissing our review so easily, or quite simply, stop lying. Whatever notes you've looked at are either made up by yourself or simply wrong. We didn't reserve room 6, we weren't even aware of it until Michelle advised she was booking us into that room as we were coming up for an event with our two young boys. We didn't speak with the reservation team. Each time we contacted yourselves to book, we spoke with Michelle. So either your lying or Michelle is. And again, we didn't reserve that room. It was Michelle who had made the promise that that was the room she was booking us into. On arrival at your hotel, it was Michelle who checked us in, and she had stated that she had booked us into that room, but others had moved us, from one room, to another and to another, and the room we ended up with frankly was below any standard we've experienced before. Secondly, we received no letter or email regarding hot drinks being replenished upon request . Your also missing the point that the facilities and refreshments in the room from the start were not adequate for a family of four. Why should we have to request adequate tea and coffee etc, when the booking was for four and you would have known or at least have an idea of how to stock a room, and let's not forget four of the eight sachets had been ripped and were leaking when we got to the room! And what's the point of an insincere apology, because that's what yours is. Dismissing the review by saying the reservations team took the booking is basically you implying we've made this up. Were not after anything from yourselves, I'm not looking for a refund, but a sincere apology or a phone call to accept that maybe on this occasion you've got...