Dining at ithaa would have been a highly recommended experience if not for the very poor service we encountered. It felt like we paid the price that is equivalent to the most upscale 3 Michelin star restaurants in nyc (more than 500usd for a 4...course lunch for two), but received service that was worse than a local diner.
There was only one other couple other than us for our lunch seating so there was only one waiter waiting on us, and throughout the entire meal, he devoted his entire attention on the other table going at lengths about the marine life around the restaurant with them while we were left mostly neglected. We were never asked whether we wanted still or sparkling water, whether we wanted wine before our wine glasses were removed, whether we wanted more bread refills or whether we wanted tea and coffee after our meal. It was only when we were only about to leave and saw that the other couple was enjoying their post-meal beverages that we realized that tea and coffee (and even truffles) was supposed to be included in our meal but we were never offered nor served. Bearing in mind that the restaurant is tucked in a basement, we had to climb a long narrow staircase up to ask why we were not served our beverages, only to be told that we were supposed to be the ones requesting for it, which is frankly ridiculous for a restaurant charging fine-dining prices. Also, the waiter had vanished from the restaurant after serving the other couple their beverages, so how were we supposed to make our requests? In fact, this said waiter was condescending towards us right from the start when we asked to enter the restaurant since it was already the time of our reservation (1230pm). When we arrived at 1220pm, they would not let us enter claiming that they were still cleaning, but the restaurant was closed the day before, so shouldn’t cleaning have been done by then? Anyway, for the 10mins that we waited, no one bothered to ask us whether we wanted any drinks as well so the only silver lining is that by not asking us and presumptuously clearing our wine glasses, they had actually helped us save a considerable amount of money on drinks.
The food itself was very average and none of the dishes really stood out. It felt like they were trying too hard to do fine-dining when all we really wanted was just honest, good cooking (like what we had during our dinner at Vilu). Dessert was particularly disappointing as it tasted pre-prepared and the pastry was already soggy. In fact, we did observe plates of food that were pre-prepared and cling-wrapped in the kitchen and for the price point that we are paying, I don’t think it is too much to ask for food to be made-to-order instead of pre-prepared.
I did not feedback this to the hotel management during our stay as I did not want to ruin my partner’s experience of ithaa but looking back at my experiences during my trip in Maldives, I felt that my once-in-a-lifetime, bucket-list experience at ithaa had been considerably ruined by the service I encountered and I would strongly urge the management to redeploy someone else who is more service-oriented to work at ithaa.More
