Spago Italian Bistro

We were in the Heritage hotel on a two night deal. Our deal included food in their Italian Spago restaurant (see photos). A ciabatta with olive oil, cheese, tomato and tasty as well as a generous portion; a duck leg main and a sirloin steak main. I asked for the steak to be medium. It was. It was a good thick tasty steak. It had a good pepper sauce on the side. I asked for English mustard — best mustard in the world too — no problem. Mashed potatoes, chips and a mix veg of turnip, green beans & carrots. All perfectly tasty, all perfectly cooked. Desserts of profiteroles and a tiramisu — both liberally dosed with chocolate sauce and cream. Phew. The cocktail waiter cheerfully conjured up two cosmopolitans (€ 10 each). The staff were attentive and efficient.

Spago is one of the two restaurants owned by the Portlaoise Heritage Hotel. I’d visited previously on my hen weekend last year and enjoyed it so when we came back to Portlaoise (ironically enough on a voucher for a free night given to me due to a horrible experience in Kelly’s Foundry, the other restaurant) we decided to go back, big mistake.
Spago do, what appears to be, a good value dinner menu, 59 euro for a 3 course meal for two and a bottle of wine. When we arrived we were told the lamb shank was gone but we could have chicken instead, off to a bad start. I ordered the baked ricotta for my starter which came out cold, I’m not sure this chunk of ricotta had ever seen the inside of a microwave never mind a real oven. My main of chicken supreme was actually quite nice, the chicken was really tender and the chicken pasta himself got was apparently lovely. The white wine was fine at the start but it needed to remain ice cold to be drinkable, even the slightest hint of warmth turned it to vinegar.
The service, as in all my 1 star reviews, was where our night really started to go downhill. Our table was tucked away in a corner so we were virtually ignored for most of the night, for periods of 10 to 15 minutes at a time. Our starter arrived quickly, then there was a long gap until the main arrived and then a huge wait to even get a dessert menu. After sitting with our menus in front of us for ages (well I did manically wave mine in the air a bit to try catch some attention) himself got up, walked over to the other side of the room where our server WALKED RIGHT PAST HIM and gave our order to one of the three waitresses standing around. The other staff seemed much more concerned with setting up for the next day than attending to the remaining patrons. After dessert came and went (my «variety of icecream» consisted of 3 scoops of vanilla and one chocolate, all of which tasted like they’d been melted and refrozen at some point) we got tired of waiting and got up to pay the bill at the register.
This is where I got really annoyed. The supervisor (I think?) apologised a few times for the slow service across the night. If you knew the service was slow why didn’t tell your staff to get their finger out? Apologising to us now is not really any use. Then she asked me several times was it ok, glancing at my darkening face with a pleading look as if asking me for forgiveness and to reassure her that everything was going to be ok. With every question I got more and more quiet and more and more angry until she eventually figured out it was time to shut up.
This is the second time I’ve had a horrible experience in a restaurant owned by the Heritage Hotel, as the biggest hotel in the town you’d think they would realise that they play a key role in enticing tourists to visit and revisit the town? Clearly not. They asked me to give you another chance when they messed up the last time and I came back to experience the exact same thing again, nice job.