Reviews in Barnard Castle

17th Feb, ‘23 After booking lunch at this hotel (a week prior) as a stop-off point on the way to the Lake District, we found ourselves on the day of travel, stuck in traffic. Realising that we would be late for our 1.30pm appointment we decided to ring the hotel to ask if we could push our booking on until 2pm. Our first unanswered call at 1.18pm was followed by a further nine (9) unsuccessful attempts every few minutes or so (& each time ending up on answer-phone machine) until finally at 1.42pm (24mins later & already 12mins late for our lunch appointment) the telephone was actually answered! Hooray! I explained the situation & that we had actually been trying to call for the last near on 25mins expecting the young man to give some explanation as to why they hadn’t picked up, but no! After asking if possible to push our lunch appointment on 30mins he said he would find out & call me back, & to be fair he did, & confirmed that it would be fine. We arrived a bit fraught after our journey, & we’re really looking forward to a nice relaxing lunch. On entering reception we gave our booking name to the girl behind the desk & again explained why we were late & that we had tried to call many times but with no answer until the young man (also now sat behind the counter) had answered our call. Again no explanation as to why the telephone remained unanswered. I must also point out here that when you call the given number (01833 627232) you are greeted with four options - press 1, 2, 3 or hold for reception. We tried every option at least twice and they all ended up with the exact same message asking to ‘leave a message’ as they were busy! Busy doing what? All departments were busy!! There were 2 people in the restaurant & maybe 5 in the bar/Bistro. We did also leave a message somewhere amongst all those calls, but no return call. The young lady checked our booking and led us to the Dickens Bistro which looked a little less inviting in real life & as I’d noticed 2 people eating in the restaurant (Gilroys) to the right as we entered the hotel, asked if it was ok to eat in there instead. She replied yes, so we made our way back through the reception and waited (as the sign said) to be seated. She never returned, so after 3-4mins we went in & sat down. After a further 5mins of being ignored by the reception staff & what looked like a manager passing through the room, I said to my wife that if we were not acknowledged in the next few moments I was going to get up & leave. My wife went off to the toilet & returning some 3-4mins later, we were still waiting for someone to speak to us. Nothing, not a ‘we’ll be with you in a minute’ or anything. We stood up, put on our jackets and left via reception without being spoken to. I was so annoyed that we had tried our best to do the decent thing and let them know in advance & due to their lack of professionalism our lunch reservation had been completely ruined. I never write restaurant reviews & we eat out a great deal, but I feel this place really needs sorting out by someone higher up the ladder, unless of course they are the same! PS. We also today received an email asking if we’d enjoyed our meal!

The restaurant is very nice the food was good but the portion of the sea bass was really small with just a few potato and a couple of tomatoes not good value the sweets were ok but again very small portions fir the money

We had evening meal, breakfast and afternoon tea and all were delicious. Great service, staff are all very attentive and friendly. Lovely hotel, thoroughly enjoyed our stay.

Went for an over night stay and spa and evening meal the food was absolutely delicious the choice is great the notes which gives you the wines that accompany the choice is a good idea the staff where great and also the breakfast was very good also

Went for afternoon tea, made them aware I had a peanut allergy. They then came out with cakes with nuts on which I also avoid, when I explained that I could not eat it I was told the food was contaminated with nuts. I asked if we could have some other cakes to be told that they had no spare ones in. A bit disappointed

Second meal at this restaurant and did not disappoint, lovely meal and friendly staff

We had Afternoon tea which was lovely , the evening meal was lovely but thought the side of veg was very expensive and breakfast we could not fault anything . absolutely brill .the staff were very friendly and efficient.the decor was very nice

Excellent food, good selection to choose from

Nicely decorated and cosy dining area, staff very friendly and helpful. One vegetarian option and no vegan option for evening meal, and no vegan options for breakfast so i had to go without, which is why I scored a 3 for food. However the food I was able to eat was delicious, but slightly overpriced for what it was.

Myself and my 93 year old Nan went for afternoon tea and it was such a welcoming place. Staff were all really friendly and attentive plus the food was lovely too. A lovely experience definitely be back

We had a lovely meal. Food was lovely, service was excellent. We had a lovely evening.

We stayed at the hotel with a last minute booking due to business travel, two of us arrived late in the evening and we managed to get a table in the main restaurant. The starters came and we were delighted at the quality, freshness and also the service received, my colleague had the camembert whilst I had the crispy beef, both were amazing. For mains we had fillet steak, and venison, the quality of the meat and the presentation was first class, I enjoyed every mouthful. Amazing place, amazing food, amazing people, amazing stay!

Amazing food,service & friendly staff.

We stayed here as part of a package deal from Wowcher. Our deal included afternoon tea and a two course evening meal. My husband and I were pleased with the quality of food. The evening meal especially. The breakfast was pretty standard but a good deal included within the package. The only compliant would be it’s a little lacking on the atmosphere front. We had afternoon tea and there was no background music so you could hear other people’s conversations etc. we felt the same on the evening. We hoped for pre-dinner drinks but the place seemed to be really lacking in atmosphere and character. The service was great and the waiting staff were so polite and very welcoming and friendly. The overall deal was definitely value for money, though.

Great location lovely spa next door to hotel lots to do within distance of Barnard castle very peaceful just so lovey to relax with out any loud music just such a nice place to chill out food was excellent and staff were pleasant breakfast was good as the afternoon tea was our evening meal was outstanding will definitely go back

Amazing restaurant. Extremely tasty food and incredible friendly and rodessionzl service

Great food, good choice, great atmosphere, great value, some meals incurred a supplement but was clearly indicated on the menu. Experience exceeded our expectations.

Food is amazing. I can’t think of anything wrong with it at all. The only thing I can fault the night is the atmosphere of the restaurant is pretty dead , we tried to book for 7:30 and we were told we can’t have that time but we could have 7:15. We were happy with this but we were surprised that the place was still quite empty throughout the night. We couldn’t work out why 7:30 was unavailable. If you want a drink then make sure you ask for one, because no one will come to the table and ask if you want one. You’ve got to grab eye contact with someone to try and get one. The food is so good though I’d still come back. I feel like i may be being too critical of the place because the food is on another level that the service doesn’t match, the food is so good that the service has no chance to match so it becomes apparent.