Oyster House (Hotel) — Restaurant in Wales

Great location to stay if you're looking to explore Mumbles. The room and bathroom was spacious and nicely done, and the bed was comfortable. The amenities in the room was great whereby there was tea/coffee making facilities, mini fridge and the standard bits (e.g. hair dryer, hangers, iron, ironing board etc). They were creative with the 'do not disturb' sign by utilising weighted animal soft toys where you can leave them outside by your room if you don't want to be disturbed. Unfortunately, the air-conditioning in my room was not working. As the weather was chilly enough, we didn't bother with complaining and chose to just have the window open throughout our stay.

The reason that I've given 2 stars for the service quality is mainly due to poor experience encountered during check-in and check-out. For context, the hotel don't have a dedicated reception desk but just a host stand in the corner at the end of the restaurant bar. When we arrived, I was told to wait for their manager to help check me in as it was only her that could do the check-in process. I was in a rush that day and after 10 mins, there was no sight of the manager so I decided to ask a staff member from the bar if I could leave my luggage and come back to collect the key a bit later. They were unsure and said I unfortunately need to wait for the manager. I waited for a good 20 mins in total before the manager came to check me in (it was the longest wait to just check-in into a room I gotta say!). I desperately needed to head off as I've already spent 20 mins waiting and was already late to the appointment that I had to attend to, so I asked the manager if it was ok for them to store my luggage and collect it later. To my surprise, the manager responded "what is the purpose of leaving your luggage here?" even though I've explained that I really need to rush off and already been waiting 20 mins here. I come from hospitality background and have worked in hotels for 6 years and surely this is not how you speak to a customer, so I found the response rather rude. If there was no storage facility for hotel guests to leave their luggage (I suspect this is the case), then just say sorry and explain that there is no luggage storage facility and not show an attitude to your paying customer like it's a major inconvenience. During check-out, it was the same process where I had to wait for their manager to come over. After about 5 mins, the same manager that checked me in came and I told her I would like to check-out. I handed my keys over and she just said 'Ok' and walked off. There was not even a basic thank you/goodbye/how was your stay uttered from her. I was quite shocked by her attitude and hope that's not how she treats all paying hotel guests that walked through the door.

We had dinner at the restaurant and the food was average for the prices charged. I had fish and chips and the haddock was not the freshest and tasted like frozen fish. However, the Scotch Egg starter was tasty.

Overall, the stay was decent as the quality of the room was good. The check-in and check-out experience could be further improved as well...

Meal Date (Read Below)

13/06/2022

Background

4 People for an evening meal.

On arrival at the table, half the party was told what was not available and this was due to a missed delivery by their supplier. Totally understandable but could have been delivered more professionally by the staff. Right from the very start, it was as if the were 3 people serving our table..... seemed to have no flow or system in place.

Drinks

1x beer - flat 1 x Diet cola as there was no full fat 2 x white wine - was very nice.

Starters order 1x scallops (because that was all they had) but we only found this out after we made the order so the fritters were ordered. 1x fritters

starter

Scallops were OK 3/5

Fritter were disgusting 1/5

Main course

1 x cod 1 x lamb 2 x place

Cod was terribly dry and had a taste like it had been around too long.

Lamb - This was a terrible cut of lamb rump supper fatty and stringy. The au jus I could taste the concentrate mix it was made from - tasted like cheap Bisto. The potato was not cooked all the way - Glad I ordered some chips.

Place - completely tasteless was too big for the plate and was totally over sauced / oily.

Plates were cleaned up by the staff and then they just dropped us the bill without even being asked...... The bill was then wrong and challenged us on it ..... not what I would expect in any service environment. At no point in my time in this restaurant did I feel like I was in a higher-end restaurant.

This meal was £127.00

Will we be returning ...... what...

My wife, I and another couple thought we'd round off an amazing bank holiday weekend in South Wales at the Oyster House before heading home. We checked out the menu at the entrance and decided that the seafood on offer looked great. The restaurant was modern and well appointed and our expectations were high. After being shown to our table we chose a wine to go with our planned order of mussels and crab rolls. Sadly, when we came to order they had none left. The waitress asked if this had been explained to us before ordering our drinks but it hadn't. "Oh well" we thought. It's a busy bank holiday weekend let's go for something else. "Do you have the dressed crab?" Yes was the answer so we ordered three only to be told there was one available. Now I'm not so pretentious to expect a restaurant to have everything on their menu but if they had explained what wasn't available upon entry we would have probably given this place a miss. However, what really annoyed us was the way the situation was handled. I saw the waitress talking to a small man in tight checked trousers and pointy shoes who I can only assume was the manager and he didn't even have the courtesy or nerve to come over and apologise. Instead he skulked in the background and left the waitress to do a halfhearted attempt. If the manager, and I use that term loosely, could have mustered the courage to come over and say sorry this would have a very...