I was remarking to a friend recently that I don’t get to review restaurants much any more, a classic example of being careful what you wish for!
When I was invited by some former colleagues to join them at The Crown Hotel in Harrogate for a meal, I jumped at the chance, as I love the place and quite fond of their company as well.
The meal in question was a kind of last supper, as the organisation to which they belong, and of which I was chair for several years before retirement, has been instructed to conduct future meetings virtually. There were six of them present along with the wife of one, the wife and two children of another and myself. The family group had booked to eat shortly after the meeting had ended, to facilitate bedtime for the kids, whilst the remaining seven of us met in The Churchill Suite at 7.00pm.
We arrived at the appointed hour and shown to a table by the waiter who then left. I got a sense of foreboding from the start as the plethora of menus on the table were all wine lists. After a while he returned and asked if we were ready to order, to which we obviously replied that we were unable to do so and explained the reason. He returned with two menus to be shared between the seven of us. To be fair he did garner some more and returned with those a little later. We had all had a cursory look at the food menu by this time so could order the appropriate wine, which we did. Something then happened which I have never come across before. The waiter brought the wine, removed the screw cap and poured me a small sample to taste, which I did and he then dispensed the full measure, repeating the process for the chap with whom I was sharing the bottle. He then screwed the cap back on! I realise that it was one of the lower priced Pinot Noirs on the wine list, but it still needed to breathe so I removed the top whilst wondering what he would have done had it been a cork.
The menu itself seemed to encapsulate the lax attitude of the whole experience. Note the glaring mistake in the Starters field and a couple of other possible typos; Mash Potato – certainly and Mushroom – possibly. I thought that there would be more than one mushroom served but I was later to find out that possibly there wasn’t. By the way, the room is The Churchill Suite, no apostrophe s.
We ordered our meal and began to chatter away until the starters arrived. It proved to be a fairly long discussion, as they were not served for quite some time, and then only six made it to the table, one diner being totally neglected. It was obvious that his order had not been actioned by the kitchen staff as it was not delivered until the rest of us had finished ours. At this point I would have thought that anyone concerned with the taking and delivery of orders would have gone to the kitchen to make sure that they had a record of his main course and dessert requirements and confirming that they were being properly dealt with and synchronised with the rest of the table.
I had ordered the Salt and Pepper Fried Squid with Chimichurri Dipping Sauce for main course, as had my friend with whom I was sharing the wine. He likes Squid but is not partial to spicy food so asked that the sauce be replaced with mayonnaise, which, to their credit, is what happened. He might as well not have bothered as the dipping sauce was very light on the red chilli flakes so hardly hotter than his mayo. The squid was fairly bland as well. The point of searing a lime is to serve it while still hot to add a caramelised flavour to the juice, this was stone cold.
By this time the cumulative effect of the lack of attention to detail, as well as the more serious starter issue, was beginning to snowball. Another example of laxity was the red tea light holder, shown above, was not lit, possibly because it didn’t contain a tea light. Why not simply remove it to make more space, you can see from the photograph below that my plate was hanging over the edge of the table due to lack of space. A case of use it or lose it.
When the table had been cleared after the starters, there followed another long gap before the main course arrived, so long in fact that we had to order another glass of wine each, and we are not big drinkers any more. Eventually my Slow Cooked Lamb Shoulder, Mash (sic) Potato, Honey Glazed Carrots, Pea & Mint Puree arrived.
The lamb was delicious as was the sauce, but the portion size was very much on the small side, especially when subject to a £2 surcharge. You could have justified it in a small plates or tasting menu but not as the main event. It was, however, a whole lot bigger than the one received by the seemingly ostracised member of the party, whose main course was subject to the same delay as his starter.
Desserts came, again after a long gap, minus the one for the hapless pariah of course, who was by now thinking he had been seated in a different time zone. We had long finished our puddings before his made an entrance. By the way, the menu has this listed as Strawberry Cheesecake, Honeycomb.
I can only presume that the honeycomb is incorporated into the base, although the taste was not discernible. The comma after Cheesecake on the menu would imply a separate item in a list, but I had given up by this time. The lady diner’s Chocolate Fudge Cake, Vanilla Ice Cream certainly didn’t have the latter component incorporated into the former, nor anywhere else on the plate for that matter.
Coffee was served, sans sweeteners requested by one of the chaps, and we managed to escape just over three hours after our arrival.
The current chairman of the organisation complained to the manager, who deducted the wine and supplements from the bill. He came to the table and went through the motions of apologising, but that didn’t really go very far.
Should our experience sound dire, it is nothing to what happened to the family group. If you look at the menu again, you will see a paragraph at the end asking diners to inform a member of staff of any allergies. There is a list of foodstuffs which may have come into contact with those in the diner’s order but it does not include peppers, to which our colleague has a severe reaction. He routinely asks restaurants whether his choice includes peppers, and, if so, and it is not possible to omit them, he orders something else. He did so here, his requirement ostensibly being noted. Not only had the meal he ordered come into contact with peppers, they were actually served up to him on his plate.
In the hundred or so restaurants I reviewed incognito during the couple of years before the pandemic, the smaller number of press events since, not to mention the thousands all over Europe and America visited for pleasure since the 1960s, I have never been to an establishment with such a cavalier attitude to the clientele, not just in one aspect of the dining experience, but every part of it. What should have been a celebration of our final get together became a total train wreck.
Should you be contemplating a break in Harrogate – I live here and it’s a great place – and you opt to stay at The Crown, I would recommend you investigate the many wonderful independent restaurants in the town for your evening meal.
For more details about The Crown Hotel please go to https://www.crownhotelharrogate.com/
All photographs by Stan Graham
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