Cafe - Kiltimagh

Disappointing service waited a very long time before our order was taken. Limited skeleton menu on offer with no chicken options which is misleading as the hotel website states the full menu is available daily until 9pm. The wife ordered Fish Chips which was below standard tiny fish coated in too much batter which was dry and crusty. I ordered the Hickory Burger which was quite nice but only came with a tiny portion of chips and no salad. No salt and pepper on the table or offered. No check by any of the waiting staff to ask if everything was ok. Deserts were also of poor quality the pear almond tart which I ordered was very dry straight out of the microwave. The wife ordered the warm chocolate Brownie which was also very dry. Over all an extremely disappointing experience and after this it is very unlikely we will return which is a real shame as this place used to be our favourite restaurant in Ireland.

While staying at the hotel, I decided to have dinner at this restaurant. The menu offered a good selection of reasonably priced options for a hotel restaurant. The food was excellent, with generous portion sizes, and the staff was very friendly.

The very last thing that crosses your mind when you walk into the large and almost empty dining room of The Park hotel in Kiltimagh, is that you will wait almost a full hour for your meal to arrive. But that is exactly what happened to our party of three, last Saturday afternoon. We complained after we’d eaten but did we get the sort of simple, unreserved apology you’d expect after waiting that long? The type of apology that says “We’re very sorry, that’s a disgracefully long time to wait, please accept our sincerest apologies”. No, we did not. Instead, we got a very qualified apology. The Sorry but... kind. The manageress “explained” to us that we “should expect a delay of 25 to 30 minutes anyway when ordering a main course without a starter”. I “explained” back that we’d waited a full 30 mins before the barman/waiter placed our cutlery on the table with the remark that “Your meals should arrive within…minutes” and another 25 before our food actually arrived. I added that I’d gone over to the bar around the 45 min mark to say “We’d be more than ready for our food now?” And that he 'd shrugged and informed me, “It’ll be out as soon as it’s ready”. Which sounds an awful lot like, “What’s your problem pal?” When I said, “I’m not sure we’ve have ordered if we’d known it would take this long”, he looked offended and said, “You do know we have a function in the other room?” Something that wasn’t mentioned by anyone when we arrived or when we ordered or at any point before I said we’d be more than ready for our food. The manageress at this point inquired if we’d enjoyed our food and I said mine was fine but my wife said “Well, since you ask, the chicken supreme I had was a bit dry”. She immediately sneered “Well it can’t have been that bad because you’ve all cleared your plates”. My wife tried several times to explain that she never said it was inedible, just a bit dry and “only because you specifically asked how our food was”. I said “To be fair, we were already hungry when we arrived and even more so, a full hour later”. It didn’t matter, the manageress was now talking about her “passion for food”, as if this had anything to do with the huge delay in serving us. The delay that nobody on the hotel side, disputed. After that she launched into a new lecture about how ‘we cook everything to order’. Despite the fact that our complaint was that our food hadn’t been cooked when it was ordered. I kept wondering why a simple apology for a mistake nobody on the hotel side disputed, wasn’t on offer. The function was then mentioned as the reason for the delay in serving us and I said, “So if we’d been in that room, we’d have been served on time?” That was unreasonable too apparently because the answer we got was, “Ah now!” Translation: it’s unreasonable to blame the delay on the thing we said was responsible for the delay. At that point we left but as my wife was paying, the manageress resumed her Sorry but apology again and my wife simply said, You know, as a manager, you should be able to accept a little customer feedback, especially when you 've asked for it . It’s obviously a cliché to invoke Basil Fawlty when complaining about poor service but not even John Cleese could have written her reply: “Yes I can but you’re just picking on us!” All in all, a very dispiriting experience. Sorry certainly seems to be the hardest word for The Park Hotel in Kiltimagh.

Review is for restaurant only. Food was very poor, ordered chicken carbonara and potato skins with pulled pork as a main, Carbonara had chewy meat with sinues still in it, asked for chips instead of garlic bread, got chips and no bread but charged full whack for chips.€4.50... potato skins came basically 2 roasted spuds with a spoonful taken out and the smallest pulled pork on top, not even hot, no chips no salad and tried to charge 19€. Un-Experienced staff, over charged, said it to manager on way out and he toke 3€ off my 56€ meal for 2.

We dined at this restaurant both evenings of our stay and had a great experience. The staff was friendly and attentive, and the food was excellent. The steak I had on the first night was delicious and perfectly cooked. The roast beef I had on the second night was also very tasty. Even though I don't usually have dessert, I couldn't resist the brioche bread butter pudding, which was absolutely delicious. Overall, I always enjoy dining here and will definitely be returning.