Fork & Bottle at The Desmond — Restaurant in East Whiteland Township

What happened to the brunch at The Desmond Hotel? Our family used to enjoy amazing brunches here complete with carving stations, omelettes to order, a chocolate fountain with many varieties of fresh fruit, cookies and marshmallows for dipping. A sea of fresh, high-quality baked goods and desserts stretched on many tables. There were platters of smoked fish and shrimp cocktail along with row after row of piping hot silver-domed containers filled with delicious and often unusual brunch options.

Fast forward to today’s Sunday brunch under a different “chef” and how things have changed. Gone are the platters of shrimp and seafood, ditto the carving stations and all the wonderful desserts. Instead there are a few tables of tired looking pastries and a few dried out, crumbly mini croissants - the types that someone took out of plastic clam shells and put on a few plates and plunked on the table in a small room off of the dining room. Gone were the salad selections but there was a bowl of semi-wilted mixed greens with some gloopy, factory-made dressing. Made to order omelette are still available but made in the kitchen. Smoked salmon is still available too but it’s a special ask that arrives with two tiny, rolled pieces of smoked fish the size of two cigarettes. Everything smacks of cost-cutting, everything seems made in a factory and plated on-site. The one bright spot was our waitress who couldn’t have been nicer but certainly don’t come here for a special or celebratory occasion and definitely don’t come...

In short, the hostess made this an unpleasant experience.

My husband and I booked a reservation for this restaurant on Valentine’s Day. The reservation was for 5 PM and we were on time. When we arrived, the hostess informed us that the table we reserved is only available until 7 PM. Given the holiday, we thought this was understandable.

We were seated and look at the menu. Right away we notice that the menu items didn’t have prices. Then we notice that this menu was a Valentine’s Day special where each person got a 3 course meal for $64 each. This was more than we were planning to spend but tried to embrace the situation anyway. Before we ordered, I asked the waitress if there was a standard menu and she said yes and brought it to us. This seemed manipulative to us in that they were trying to trick us into ordering from the more expensive menu.

I ordered the chicken parm which was fine and my husband ordered a steak and fries which he says looked like it had fake grill marks on it. Over all the food was a 5/10.

Finally, at exactly 6:24 while we were finishing our drinks, the hostess came back and said “we hate to do this, but we need you to leave the table. We can seat you at the bar if you like.” My husband responded “No. We’ll be leaving soon.” Mind you, the restaurant was maybe 60% filled at this point with many empty tables. It was very rude for the hostess to ask customers to leave a half an hour before she originally said.

Overall, the mistakes made could be forgivable to most, but we...

So been doing brunch here for years but the standards have dropped significantly and I can not officially say that better options that take pride in quality and presentation. I know I have a special order, but if your chef cant figure out to prepare thinner pancakes without failing to cook food to and edible temperature and not serving up an unhealthy mass of dough likely to make one sick then what are you doing and why bother being a restaurant. Generally some nice servers here but more broadly there has been a drop off and there are some poor attitudes. This is sad and this will be my last time here. Failed to meet expectations. Poor resolution of issues. Poor conflict management. In short, regarding hospitality, they failed hence the review. If the expectations are reasonable, any reasonable service operator will meet or exceed them. Not this place. The explanation I received from the restaurant manager was they did not have a recipe for the pancakes I wanted despite making them for me every time I go there. If the cook is not supervised by a chef, again, why bother operating as a restaurant. Chefs make recipes and would never have permitted under-cooked to be served. This place has gone...