Larkspur Grill — Restaurant in Palm Desert

Had a 7:30 reservation. Didn't see a waitress until 7:50... Didn't get our first drinks until 8:15. Placed an order for an appetizer and it came out wrong. Got it fixed and then put in our dinner order. The place was busy and after reading reviews of slow service I was giving the benefit of the doubt that they were just backed up. At 9:45 the waitress asks if we want another drink or if she should get us the check. I told her that we were still waiting for our food. She looks at her watch and says "oh I'm sorry the kitchen is closed". I looker at her dumbfounded and said yeah but we ordered over an hour ago.. She says "no" lol.. I said "yes" and tell her what we ordered. She realized she screwed up, put her hands on her face and said she would go check with the kitchen. At 10pm the live music stopped everyone left and all the tables around us were being cleaned up. The waitress was bringing her other tables their checks and basically avoiding us. I asked to speak to a manager because at this point we weren't going to eat our meals while the rest of the restaurant is being cleaned up. Took about 10 minutes for him to come over... He said "I've been told there was a delay, so I just wanted to come apologize". Delay?!? I explain the situation and that we've been here since 7:30 and he says he'll go look into it. He comes back and says that they are going to adjust the bill. The waitresses comes back with the food and at this point it's 10:15, frustrated and angry we refuse the food and just want to leave. At 10:30 she comes back and says that they took off drinks (2 of the lower priced drinks of the 5 we ordered) and the food (which we never ate). The bill was 58 bucks. I usually tip regardless of slow service but it was obvious that the waitress screwed up royally and then either lied or did not tell the entire truth to the manager and also never really apologize to us. I thew 60 bucks down and walked out after being in the restaurant for 3 hours and not having dinner. There is no way we should have paid for anything. Once I explained to the manager the situation at 10:00 he should have just told us that we could leave and comped everything so we could get out of there. Instead we sat there for 30 more minutes to pay 60 dollars for one of the oddest "dining" experiences I've ever had.

Two stars becaue once the appetizer was fixed it was pretty good and the vibe and life...

Went on Sat 6:30 pm 1/7/23 part of 6. Was sat promptly with a great server initially. Place was not to busy. Started with a round of cocktails- but then told they had no cucumbers to make one of their signature cocktails- that's odd. Ordered 5 appetizers that came to table in good time , all were good, nothing spectacular but good. We promptly put in our entrée orders while waiting for our appetizers. Three ordered the special- which our server should a photo of it- (nice touch)one cheese tortellini, 1 short rib and one large salad. And then we waited, and waited and saw the restaurants other tables get served and leave- and we waited- about another hour from appie's for our dinners to arrive. Our server went MIA during this long wait. We saw employees hanging out at hostess stand chatting- bar was empty. Finally the food came, the tortellini looked dried up, the bowl was hot but pasta cold and dry- clearly they plated it to soon and microwaved it. We asked for it to be heated up thinking the would notice it need some sauce being all dried up- they didn't. They just microwaved it again- it was horrible, completely initiable. The special was good but one was played incorrectly and missing other side items from the dish- after waiting so long we didn't say a word. One of the reason we just didn't bother saying anything was because of the 3 piece band that started at 7 pm- the music was so loud- like a concert that we could not talk to each other. Also they were not so good, at a lower volume it would have been ok, and the female singer was ok, but the male singer was always badly off key. At such a high volume it was hard to ignore his bad voice. And the band had 4 friends there to cheer them on sat right behind us that must have thought this was a concert as well because of their loud screaming of support- it just was not a fine dining experience. We appreciate their enthusiasm, but not during the main dining seating, maybe later in the night- someone working at the restaurant should have been more aware of what was going on. Hubby paid so fast so we could leave he didn't notice we were charged $16.00 for the cucumber cocktail we NEVER received- our server Lady M missed that too. So over $500 later it's clear we will NOT go back, we have tried them a few times and nothing was ever great but had potential- this was the last - seems the kitchen and the dining room have no direction...

We didn't know Hotel Paseo existed until we parked in front of Larkspur Grill. Instead of heading towards our target restaurant, we checked out the Larkspur Grill. They have an interesting menu with vegan friendly, gluten free, and dairy free items clearly marked. I was very tempted to try the Jackfruit Tacos, but was a bit worried about the chipotle crema. The Larkspur Grill bowl interested me and it was marked as dairy free, so I forgot to ensure that the grana padano was the non-dairy version. My main aim was to make sure that garlic was not part of the ingredients. The server said something that was music to my ears and made me want to come back, he said: "just tell us what you like and what you want to eat and we will make sure that it will work for you". I took that to mean that they have real chefs on-site! We ended up with Buttermilk Pancakes, and Larkspur Grill Bowl. When the food arrived though, I could smell the grana padano and it was definitely cows milk based. They apologized for the mistake on the menu and offered to make me another one. Since it was not an allergy but a diet restriction, I decided to pick through my salad instead – why waste food? While we were there, we saw other interesting bowls being served, but there weren't that many bowl options on the menu. We came back for another two meals. I tried that Plant Based Breakfast Bowl featuring plant-based eggs+cheese. The eggs+cheese on top of the bowl was amazing, I had to ask the server again just to make sure no real eggs were involved as I found out that eggs cause my eczema to flair up. But I thought that the stuff at the bottom like the tofu, and sweet potatoes was a bit too spicy for me. Since the 'eggs' were already plant based, there was too much tofu content in this bowl. When we came back a third time, I wanted to have the eggs+cheese on top of a Mixed Green Salad, but the server suggested scrambled vegan eggs which is not what I really wanted. We also ordered Steal Cut Oatmeal and that was exceptional. Well, if this restaurant was local to us, we'd mostly likely be eating there every weekend. The hotel interior was very modern and...