Las Iguanas - Center Parcs Elveden — Restaurant in West Suffolk

We ate out every day during our Center Parcs stay (Bella Italia, Hucks and Forsters Inn) and overall Las Iguanas was the best main meal (with the exception of Pancake House) but still not anything outstanding. Portion size was decent and the food tasted pretty nice, but it was fairly standard, nothing special. It was a bit on the expensive side but all the restaurants are there. The food was brought over by a little novelty machine which was very entertaining! The main downside of this restaurant is that there were long wait times to have our drinks/food order taken and an even longer wait time for someone to take payment when the restaurant wasn't exceptionally busy. The food itself didn't take too long to arrive, but we waited almost half an hour to be able to pay the bill.... There was also an added optional 7.5% service charge (which is applied at all restaurants across Center Parcs) which would have taken even longer to get this removed so we reluctantly paid this one as we just wanted to get going. There was one waitress working in there called Jess who was the only one who seemed to be doing any work, she was amazing and was tending to all the tables (about 6/7 in total) where as the other two waitresses (one that I believed might have been a manager as she was dressed in different uniform) just kept standing round at the tills not doing much and both of them went outside for half an hour separately, leaving Jess to do all the work... Even when we eventually managed to ask for our bill, the woman I believed to be manager gave our dirty plates to Jess to clear even though Jess was already doing so much. Jess was really lovely and seemed like a very hard worker so I would like to give...

Worst experience ever! They will tell you when booking on the center parcs webpage that there's hardly any availability but when you get there you'll see the whole restaraunt of over 300 capacity is virtually empty. I'd be really concerned if I was las iguanas owners!!

Staff were appalling from the moment we arrived. The waitress kicked up a fuss about where we could sit because we had 2 babies who needed high chairs and apparently it would interfere with the robots if we sat in the comfy chairs with 2 babies. Robots that were not even used because this same waitress brought the food by hand.

The food itself was dreadful. We've been to many Las iguanas before so could easily compare. The wings were fried and bbq sauce dolloped over the top of them... no effort or taste.

The nachos had hardly any cheese on them and when we asked for extra cheese the supervisor just added raw cheese over the top... we then asked for it to be melted and to our shock they put the whole thing in the oven.. the guacamole, sour cream, salsa and jalapeños now really warm and disgusting to eat.

The burgers were plan and not marinated whatsoever and were literally grilled chicken which was hard to bite and to eat. The waiting staff were just talking the whole time we were there behind the bar joking and laughing and not once did they come over to ask us how our meals were. We paid over £150 for 4 of us and to be honest it's the worst restaraunt and staff (bar the kitchen staff who were working tirelessly) that we have ever come across. If you ever stay at center parcs avoid this place unless you like going to a Restaraunt that is like a graveyard with awful food and awful...

Great service, and the servers were very prompt and accommodating of our large group (10). Drinks and food came out incredibly fast, considering we had all got a range of cocktails and mains.

One issue with the mains, a counterpoint to their speedy arrival, was that a microwave had clearly been used to heat many dishes. One of the mains was cold (which was promptly swapped and comped), and others like mine, a curry, had been accompanied by flavourless microwave white rice. It is slightly disappointing as I feel cooking rice or having a rice cooker in the kitchen is an easy solution - as microwave rice is just horrible.

However, all the menu items off the grill were incredible, like the churrasco mixed grill skewers. They were smoky and full of flavour. Also, the sauce of my curry was delicate and delicious.

Additionally, I am not drinking, and I was impressed by the range of non alcoholic drinks on offer. Especially using exciting non alcohol spirits like the three spirit livener. I recommend the fierce spirtz.

In summary: great for groups, speedy cocktails and tasty grill items but avoid any dishes...