March 4th, 2009
With two colleagues, I dined in the Brasserie of the new Malmaison Hotel on Station Road, Reading. I arrived in the main entrance hall around 8pm and the reception desk was busy with guests checking in. Mailmaison is a luxury boutique hotel brand and they seemed to have done a good job in transforming the Great Western House opposite Reading Railway station. As with their hotel in Newcastle and Leeds, this hotel is stylish but in my opinion anything but contemporary. It is in fact very dark and although there were lots of lights both in the ceilings and on tables, it is actually quite difficult to see what you are doing. Your eyes do adjust after a while, but you never lose that urge to shout “turn the lights up”.
I met my colleagues in the bar and we sat at a small table for a while hoping to get table service. It didn’t arrive, so we made our way to the bar itself where we were ignored for about five minutes albeit in a very stylish way, by the manager. A young girl did eventually acknowledge our existence and served us a round of drinks. Unlike our fellow guests sat at tables and along the other side of the bar, we were not offered up any nibbles until we asked for some five minutes later.
It was soon time to take our table in the Brasserie. Unfortunately we entered to find it had not been laid out and we were asked to wait another 15 minutes while they dressed it. I was getting a little grumpy by this point. Especially given I hadn’t eaten all day, had one glass of wine down in my tummy it was fast approaching my bed time ( not a great combination, Paul will tell you!).
When we did eventually get shown to our table it was, like the rest of the hotel, dimly lit, making it almost impossible to read the menus. I was also disappointed that I had to hang my own coat up on the nearby stand. I was beginning to wonder what luxury stood for on this hotel’s website.
After sitting a while we ordered up our food and then waited. We waited a little more and then eventually were offered up some warm breads before our starters arrived.
My starter of Mutton Barley Broth (£4.50) was however excellent. It was just like my mum used to make during the cold winters in the North East and a very welcome treat. In my mind Malmaison was now clawing its way back up the old pryordurkin scale. However my main course of Steak Frites (£15.95 – essentially frying steak with fries) was not as good. The steak was a little tough and I had expected it, in a hotel like this, to be served with home cooked chips, not the type of fries you get in Macdonalds.
Anyway, the company was good and by 10.30pm I needed to get back to my hotel so I left without paying (although I did agree to settle up with my colleague the next day as he was putting it on his room bill).
In summary, I will probably be back given this hotel is on my company’s preferred list, but next time, I will take a very big torch and not wait as long to be acknowledged at the bar.
Pryordurkin rating. 3 stars. Tel: 0118 956 2300
Posted in Food and Drink