Earlier, I shared some initial thoughts on our stay at the Reykjavik EDITION, which I enjoyed, for the most part. As I mentioned in passing in that post, we had an interesting experience in the restaurant, which I’d like to cover. I have to give the hotel and restaurant credit, because it’s the best service recovery I’ve experienced in a long time.
Next, the restaurant is actually well regarded, and it’s recommended in the Michelin guide (not that I place that much value on it, but my point is simply to say that this isn’t just some random restaurant in a hotel lobby serving a “locally sourced Westin burger,” or something).
Next, we had a lot of hotel credits to burn through. We booked our two night stay through the Marriott STARS program. That ordinarily offers a $100 property credit. On top of that, there was a promotional credit through STARS for an extra $225 property credit. Then the hotel has a nightly destination fee of around $56, which can be spent at the restaurant. In other words, we had nearly $400 to spend on the dinner.
A lovely and long meal, with shocking service recovery
Iceland is known for being expensive, but the pricing at TIDES is on the very high side even by those standards. It’s not like I was concerned about the price, given how much credit we had to spend, but still, there’s quite the sticker shock (for what it’s worth, 1 USD is roughly 125 ISK).
He said that dessert would be on the house, which was a nice touch, and seemed appropriate. It definitely took an unusually long time, but we were in a good enough mood, so weren’t bothered. The appetizers ended up showing up around 45 minutes after we ordered, and they were quite good.
Once our appetizers were cleared, there was again a long gap. We each ordered another cocktail, and waited… and waited… and waited. We didn’t express frustration toward the server, but we were just a bit confused. If there was an issue with putting the appetizer order in, you’d think they’d make sure that the main course would be put in as efficiently as possible, so that the same thing doesn’t happen.
A great solo travel tip spotted this week on One Mile at a Time.
