Echoes Restaurant in Bournemouth

I have also posted on The Norfolk Hotel page but as just found this review page wanted to add to warn people how bad the hotel restaurant is. We were given a 3 course and bottle of wine voucher for Christmas 2022. From our experience I wouldn't suggest going here for a meal. I understand that the hotel has gone through a change of ownership & it is now more of a coach holiday type hotel & doesn't really welcome diners from outside their group booking stays. It took some time & confused phone calls for us to be able to book a table here & despite managing to book a table, on arrival we were greeted with the same confusion & bemusement !!! Eventually we were walked to a dingy room that i guess was an overspill area from the hotel restaurant. This room was unbelievably shabby & not in a chic way !!! Needs a total refurbishment. It was a bit like a workplace canteen & bizarrely at 6.30 set up for breakfast. Absolutely shocking to expect customers to eat in a room like this, there was only one other couple when we were eating. The staff serving us were not really interested in seeing us & the whole time we were there was very odd. Now for the footwell it was inedible Starter of a limp freezing cold & tasteless greek salad. No dressing & left the majority of it. Husband had a cheese tart type "thing" made with rock hard salad & again some inedible salad. We both felt these had been prepared earlier in the day & left on the side before being placed in a fridge that was far too cold. As for main courses we both had fish & chips, thinking they couldn't do much wrong with that....,how wrong we were. It was all frozen food & cooked in oven. Fish was cold & tasteless/not battered like you'd expect with fish & chips. Chips tasted like the cheapest value chips from a supplier. Again cooked in oven & not tasty chips. We probably left 2/3rds of our meal, to which no acknowledgement to ask what was wrong (staff probably too scared to ask!!!) For our final course we opted for cheese & biscuits.This consisted of a few cheap crackers & cheese that had been left in a far too cold fridge. Surely anyone working in the restaurant trade knows that cheese should be served at room temperature !!! Throughout our meal no-one asked how it was !!! We left as soon as we could taking the screw top bottle of wine with us to finish at home !!!

So very disappointed today as had arranged a cream team for my elderly parents who have not been out for over a year. I had booked this as previously had had my mothers 80 th birthday there. I had rung the hotel the day before to ask them if they had high back chairs as my father has Parkinson’s and is very frail. I was assured they could accommodate us. We arrived at 2.20 for a 2.30 seating and the place was dead apart from people drinking in the sun at the back of the hotel. We had to find our own high chairs which was very exhausting for my father. When seated it took ages for us to be offered our glass of bubbly as included in the cream tea. By 3.20 I asked the waiter if we were ever going to have our cream tea and he then brought out tea and coffee. 20 minutes later I approached another member of staff and advised them how disappointed I was with the service and this was a dreadful let down for my parents. I told him that we had hoped at least to have a hot cup of tea with our cream tea which by this time was stone cold.He did not offer to refresh our tea at this point. Eventually the cream tea was brought out and unfortunately the scones crumbled away in our hands as they were obviously old and had been warmed up. My mother asked for some hot water for her tea which took over 15 minutes to arrive by which time we were ready to leave. We left the cake, scones and sandwiches as the total service was appalling. I had bought the cream tea on Groupon and wondering whether because of this the service was poor. It was not as if the place was busy as it was not only drinkers outside. I won’t be bothering again and intend informing management. I would of thought with all the business they have lost due to Covid, they would be at least trying to keep customers not lose them. Don’t bother wasting your money.