The Whitebrook — Restaurant in Wales

This is a copy of an e-mail I have sent to the owners of the Whitebrook twice and received no reply.

I wanted to feed back on the experience we had at the Whitebrook yesterday evening (August 2nd). We had booked the 9-course tasting menu as a treat for our anniversary and were looking forward to a wonderful evening out.

I would also like to preface this with the fact we are no strangers to fine dining and have eaten out in many exceptional restaurants both at home and abroad.

We arrived at the restaurant promptly at three minutes to seven for our reservation at seven and were ushered somewhat hurriedly through to the restaurant area and seated. While we were offered water straight-away, it was twenty minutes before we even had sight of a wine list, for which we had to ask the waiter. We were served a selection of courses, all intricately detailed, with a huge amount of effort and lots of different flavours involved. It was clear there was real expertise in the kitchen, although we felt that perhaps the complexity was sometimes to the detriment of the real star ingredients, which should maybe have been allowed to shine more. The service was polite and effective throughout.

The major issue we had was the pace at which the courses came out. I am well aware that fine dining is not fast food, and these intricate dishes take time to prepare, but a tiny plateful of food every half an hour to forty minutes makes for a very long evening. It was well over three hours before we got to the ‘main’ course, the hogget, and by this stage we simply did not have the energy for the remaining two courses. We informed the sommelier accordingly and asked that we be brought the bill and not charged for the remaining two courses. We were told that the Whitebrook does not like to rush the experience, and we should have been aware that it could take up to three and a half hours to get through the courses. We were already three and a half hours in with two more courses to go. The time shown on our bill is 22:41.

The younger male member of staff then came to our table, admitted they were a chef down for the evening and accused us of arriving late. He said it was made clear that they liked diners to arrive half an hour beforehand for a drink in the bar (we have checked through all our correspondence and have scoured your website, including going through a full new booking process (but not completing it) and no mention is made of this). He added that the fact that we did not do this supposedly threw all their timings off, so our service did not in fact start until 1940. I have certainly not come across a restaurant that insists on customers arriving half an hour in advance of their reservation time. He tried to turn the blame for the slow food on us in spite of the fact that the sommelier had already admitted it had taken too long and agreed with us (in front of him) that we had indeed arrived before 19:00. We find that conduct utterly unacceptable. We did not withhold the service charge as that would have been unfair on the other staff members, i.e. the waitress and the sommelier.

We were charged full price for the tasting menu and one bottle of wine but not charged for one extra glass of wine each or our water. I do not believe is it is fair that we were falsely accused of arriving late. Promptness is something that is very dear to our hearts and I’m sure you have CCTV footage that proves we were exactly on time for our booking. Had the staff merely apologised for the slow delivery of food due to the fact they only had two chefs, we would have thought nothing more of it. As it is, the attitude of your staff left us with a very sour taste...

We visited the restaurant for dinner, an overnight stay and breakfast, in early June. In summary: the location was beautiful, the food was disappointing, the wines were not good and, most sadly, the hospitality was poor. We travelled to Wales and booked overnight babysitting for our first trip away post covid, because Michelin star dining is usually wonderful, so it was a bit upsetting. Hospitality We were not made to feel welcome and there were numerous problems. We had the first booking for dinner and were asked if we would like drinks on the terrace – we said yes. We were taken out to the terrace and they then said there were not enough chairs for us. It was a beautiful evening, so this was disappointing, but no attempts were made to get chairs for us and we had to sit in the completely empty restaurant for 25 minutes while all other guests were outside. It was very surreal for so long. At this point I asked a water if we could stand outside as it was very strange being so long in the restaurant alone with no food being served. He went to the kitchen and never came back. In the first hour and 52 minutes we were served two very small starters. When we asked if the next course could come in less time, we were told it would come “when it was ready”. There continued to be a very long gap between all courses and these courses were very small. Even when things sped up a little, a couple of minutes of mindful eating was followed by 30 minutes of waiting. We wanted to leave but couldn’t as we chose the tasting menu. Only those who ordered the flight of wines got a detailed description of the food, so we were able to eavesdrop on the next table. Some small errors happened – we asked for brown sauce with breakfast and were given lime marmalade instead, and ordering bircher muesli and being given dry muesli – but these were minor and easily rectified. When we first arrived at accommodation, the lady was not welcoming. The check-in is 4pm which I already think is a bit late, but we were told it may not be ready until 4.30. I said we really wanted to check in before 4.30 and managed to do so at 4.10. I asked for the wifi password and when I said this password was wrong, she was quite dismissive and said the reason it said that was that actually there was no wifi. This made no sense. In the room I discovered that she actually gave me the wrong password. Warning though – wifi is very bad. This may not bother you but we were planning walking routes etc.

Wine One positive is that there were many affordable wines available. I wanted to try the welsh wine on the menu but it was very unpleasant. My husband tried the English sparkling wine which wasn’t great. We were subsequently brought a truly terrible wine. After wondering if I was imagining it, I sent it back and the staff did apologise and agreed it had gone off - they said it was from a very old bottle which had not been tested. I subsequently tried another which was very average. Perhaps order by the bottle if you go.

Food The breakfast served in the morning was good. The poached eggs were perfectly done and the full English was great. The 7-course tasting menu for dinner unfortunately was disappointing. The eel (2nd course) and rhubarb (7th course) were very nice. The first five courses, however, had very similar flavours to one another, whereas we are used to it being a bit more diverse and exciting at Michelin-starred restaurant tasting menus. There was a radish dish which was very poor indeed. Portions were very small (except the lamb) which generally suits me fine, but the achingly long wait between courses made it a bad experience all round. The locations Undeniably...

Ok. This could take a while…I’ve read a huge number of reviews of The Whitebrook before posting this. Nearly all say that the food is fantastic (for the most part, it is) and only a few mention the extremely long waits between courses. These delays, over 9 courses, add up to your spending around 4 hours in the restaurant. I’ve eaten in some posh places and never had a 40 minute wait between courses. My husband thought there had to be a problem in the kitchen but, reading other reviews, this time frame seems standard. To be honest, I was losing the will to live by course 8 and we politely asked for the bill which came, miraculously, almost immediately.

There were three members of staff that we saw. An older man, the sommelier and a much younger chap who was really nice. The older two could have come straight from Fawlty Towers. Completely stuck-up and cold. Our ‘welcome’ was chilly. Our table was booked for 7:30pm and we arrived at 7:30 pm. The older man paused what he was doing and looked up as we entered the restaurant. Then paused again as if he had no idea we were coming. He said, slightly crossly, ‘oh you are here at last. I’d better take you straight to your table’. Definitely odd.

The building is odd too. It looks like three modern houses knocked into one. So why the ceiling beams? Why was the dining room cold (the radiators were off)? It was a dark night and there was insufficient lighting outside the property to show you where to park. Hanging about in the car in the pitch black in a narrow muddy lane trying to decipher faded parking signs is not pensioner fun, I’m afraid. We ended up in the overflow car park with a little trot to the restaurant. This would have been fine but the paths were treacherously muddy and even the concrete block walkway to the door was slippery. When we exited at about 11:15, there was no moon and absolutely no lighting. Luckily, my husband and I had our phone torches.

I have to admit to something here. We were supposed to have been eating at The Whitebrook a month earlier. On the very day, my tooth fell into two pieces, with one wobbly bit still in my jaw. There was no way that I could go out to eat like that. We telephoned The Whitebrook immediately and were curtly told that we still owed them the £260 for the meal we’d booked whether we came to eat it or not. This was not particularly surprising as the booking conditions and reminder had all informed us about this clause. However, human decency in this situation did not seem paramount. Some sympathy and an offer to rebook us would have gone a long way. My husband is not easily put off and managed to obtain last night’s reservation by paying £260 on his credit card over the telephone on the spot. Maybe this had something to do with the cold welcome and the odd things the waiter said last night? I know people just decide not to go to restaurants that they’ve booked, leaving the place out of pocket. But this was a real emergency not a silly excuse. At least the waiter could have pretended to believe us. Rude, just rude.

If you can bear all these things, the food (when you get it) is very good, if a little lukewarm. But, for God’s sake, take a room for the night then you can sit and drink the rather overpriced wine to fill...