Well where do we begin. We’d eaten in the restaurant in 2001 and thought it was absolutely fantastic and well deserved the Lancashire Life award so we were looking forward to a repeat of the same. It got off to a pretty good start as we sat upstairs and had a complimentary glass of champagne. From then on though it was downhill……. We were given the menu which comprised of a sheet of an A4 sheet of paper with four starters, four mains and four desserts so we were hardly blown away by the choice on offer. We wouldn’t have minded this so much as we thought the food would be outstanding in quality but it was far from so! To be honest it was hard to pick a starter and main as nothing excited us. For starter we both picked a goats cheese terrine with crostini. It was ok but lacked any flavour to complement the goats cheese. Next we both opted for the rib eye of beef (as there wasn’t a fillet steak anywhere to be seen on the menu). This came with mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, chunky chips and onion rings. The beef was very, very fatty and the whole dish tasted greasy like everything had been cooked in 10 year old oil. It was very disappointing. For dessert I opted for a white chocolate mousse cake. This was nice but I could get something very similar from Marks and Spencer. My husband chose cheese and biscuits which were ok. The evening was “Friday Night Live” and there was a lady singer on a stage (started about 8.45pm). The music was a bit loud and overbearing so it put an end to any conversation! There were tables with groups of people and they got up dancing so they seemed to enjoy that part of the night but it’s not really to my taste. I’m sorry to have sounded so negative but I wanted to give an honest critique of our evening. We were meant to be celebrating a special occasion and we may laugh about it in years to come but we certainly weren’t laughing at the time and given that it cost £66 (just for the food) I think it was over-priced for what was on offer. We had an opportunity to give some feedback to the restaurant manager as we were paying for the bill (we wouldn’t normally do this but it had been so disappointing and the man prompted us by asking if we had enjoyed our evening). His customer service was excellent and he explained that he had only been in the post for a week. I hope others will be as honest as they can only improve if we tell them. The surroundings were lovely and staff were efficient and polite - its just a shame that the food let the whole experience down.
Dalmeny Hotel – St. Annes-On-Sea