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.
Why we had dinner at TIDES at the Reykjavik EDITION
Reykjavik has a really vibrant food scene, which you wouldn’t necessarily expect. We enjoyed several great meals outside the hotel, but also decided to have dinner at the hotel one night, at TIDES, the signature restaurant. Why? Well, a few reasons. For one, it was a Monday night, and many restaurants in Reykjavik are closed on Mondays (at least the three top restaurants on my list were).
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).
Ford and I started by ordering a couple of cocktails, and then we both ordered appetizers. I selected the lobster and langoustine croquettes (~$36), while Ford chose the black angus tartare (~$38). Around 30 minutes after ordering, our friendly server stopped by to apologize for the delay, explaining there was an issue with our “ticket,” or something, and he said it wouldn’t be much longer.
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 little under 45 minutes after clearing our appetizers, our server once again apologized, and said it shouldn’t be much longer, and that there was again a delay. Our main courses were served around two hours after sitting down, which was a long time, but we weren’t too bothered.
Here’s what shocked me — when our meals were brought out, our server apologized once again, and said the whole meal would be comped. That seemed overly generous, so I pushed back, and said that really wasn’t necessary. He said it was a done deal, and the manager insisted. I asked if we could at least pay for our drinks (which were delivered promptly), and he said no.
For what it’s worth, I ordered the cod (~$64), while Ford ordered the lasagna (~$59).
And despite us saying we were full, a dessert was still brought out for us.
So I’m not sure what exactly went wrong that caused the meal to take so long, but this was honestly among the best (or most over the top?) service recovery I’ve had anywhere in a long time.
The irony was that to begin with, we were basically spending “monopoly money,” given the credits we had to redeem. And even with the high price of alcohol, we couldn’t actually redeem our entire credit over the course of our stay, given that this meal was comped, and we weren’t just going to drink to the point that we couldn’t walk anymore.
So anyway, kudos to the staff at TIDES at the Reykjavik EDITION for impressive service recovery. At Marriotts I’ve sadly become so accustomed to more of a “it’s not going to be great, and you better like it” approach, so this was a pleasant surprise. Even at Four Seasons I would’ve found this level of service recovery to be above and beyond, but at a Marriott, it was shocking.
Bottom line
We had a delicious but very drawn out meal at the Reykjavik EDITION’s signature restaurant, TIDES. It took a really long time for both our appetizers and main courses to come out. It’s a little puzzling to have some sort of serious delay with both courses, but to the restaurant’s credit, they comped the entire meal. That was overly generous, but then again, we were mostly paying for the meal with hotel credits anyway, so…
