Raithwaite Estate - Scarborough

The Hunters Lounge Bar provides the dining area for guests with dogs. It’s a dark room, with wasted opportunities, through poor design, providing no access to the awesome gardens. Seating with tables is provided to sit outside the front of the hotel, in the car park, however this was predominantly used by smokers. The Bar Menu includes a selection from the main dining room, but the first evening we ate in the Lounge, the service was extremely slow with mistakes being made with other diners’ orders, such as starters and main courses arriving together, soup arriving without the bread the latter only arriving, when prompted, long after the soup was finished. On the two other occasions I ordered a snack, they did arrive promptly and accurately. A key benefit of the Lounge Bar, during a muggy stay, was the much appreciated air conditioning, not available in our bedroom.

We went to Hunters at the Keep for my 70th birthday meal. The restaurant lacked atmosphere and the waiting staff inattentive and abrupt. The wine was 'plonked ' on the table not opened or poured, we had to request water and pour our own wine. The clearing of the table after the first course was messy and again we had to request the table be cleaned completely lacking in any care or detail that should be the norm in a restaurant.The food was cold , poorly presented and odd a chef trying too hard but not getting the basics right. The manager was polite and went some way to pacify us by not charging for the wine. We left without having had a full meal and our expectations were certainly not met.

Part of the Raithwaite Estate, I was staying at the hall the conseige drove me to the lodge as it was raining. It's a 5 minute walk. Relaxed dining but served with style and the attention to detail shown everywhere in the hotel.

Stayed there many times always enjoy it. Good rooms, decent spa facilities, great breakfast, wonderful setting.

I had high hopes for this afternoon tea as it looked spectacular on the website and with a minimum price tag of £21 (double what I usually pay for it at any local cafe) I really thought it would be something special. Unfortunately I was let down. The sandwiches were nice (even though I had asked for ham and my sister had asked for smoked salmon) which she was looking forward to, they came out as ham cucumber. Don’t know why my sister didn’t get her ordered smoke salmon but anyway. Moving on to the scones.. they were not freshly made that day, clearly had been reheated in the oven for a few minutes as they were stale inside and rock hard on the outside. A tiny stingy pit of clotted cream was provided with them and 2 pots of jam (no chopped strawberries) which you might expect to receive given the price tag. You would hope the desserts cakes would be considerably better? The raspberry jelly pot had raspberries on it that were green and mouldy. At this point I was really starting to get annoyed. I could of got a nice fillet steak at a pub for the price I paid for this below average afternoon tea. It certainly didn’t reflect the ‘quality and luxury’ as portrayed on the website. I took my mouldy raspberries to the waiter and explained. He seemed confused as to what to do, took it away and then came back to ask me if I wanted another one, I said yes please. So eventually another one came (baring in mind the restaurant area had 3 other tables of 2 dining at the same time) all paying £21 PP, is it that hard to supervise the quality of food leaving the kitchens? What on earth would they of turned out had the restaurant been remotely busy? Considering 8 people were dining for afternoon teas., that’s £168 minimum for 8 lots of tiny average sandwiches, stale scones.. and mouldy raspberries, the macaron was nice, tasteless choice pastry with tasteless chocolate mousse in it and a carrot cake I by this point couldn’t be bothered to eat. Certainly nothing grabbed my tastebuds and gave me a huge smile. I will stick to the value for money and excellent quality afternoon teas from my local cafes at £10 per person. Massive shame. Oh and the staff could not care less about my experience as I explained whilst I was there, might of been slightly appeased if they had knocked some money off the bill. However are people really that gullible to pay for such poor quality food without saying anything? I gave two stars as the building is attractive clean and the gardens are kept lovely. Staff seem quite attentive apart from when you complain or point out mouldy food then don’t really know how to deal with customers expecting high standards.