Mont-Sant

Booked into the restaurant for a two night stay. Had dinner the first night which was inedible. The menu was totally weird! One starter was pigs ears with raw prawns! All MAIN courses were served cold straight from the refrigerator, scallops, prawns, foie gras. We have eaten in many high end Spanish restaurants including 3 star michelin but never experienced anything like this. Although the two staff serving on the night were very polite there didn't seem to be any supervisory management around which you would expect for a four star hotel. We left the restaurant after just having the starters and cancelled our second nights booking.

The property is huge! But could be better maintained. It is located about a mile out of town, so be prepared to walk down a slight incline into Xativa and up back to your room. The rooms were comfortable but a bit dated and dark. Bed was fine. There was a safe, be sure to ask for the electronic key at check in. Bed was comfortable with extra pillows. The breakfast buffet was about 50 yards away in a glassed in plaza. It was cool while we were there so we could not eat on the courtyard. They served lots of items, pastries, ham, cheeses, fruit and they would prepare some eggs as well. Their cappuccino machine was not working, so coffee was self prepared in a Keurig like device...not too bad actually. Overall a nice place.

Hotel Montsant is set in an old monastery on the hill overlooking the town of Xativa, a short walk from the hugely impressive local castle. Sadly though, the setting - quiet and secluded but with some spectacular views over the surrounding local countryside - is probably the best thing about the hotel, which we found increasingly disappointing and frustrating the longer we stayed. Having arrived before check-in, we made our way to the hotel restaurant to grab some lunch and having been initially told it was fully-booked (though at that point entirely empty) we were eventually offered a table inside. Absolutely recognise that my Spanish is fairly non-existent, but having ordered (and had read back to us) a vegetable paella for two, it was disappointing to be served with a dish with huge chunks of pork. That said this was really the first sign of a common theme of our stay - a lack of organisation and care at the hotel and sometimes seemingly undertrained or unaware staff. To take another example, we booked dinner that evening at the restaurant, asking for an outside table. When we turned up, we were one of three couples who had clearly had the same idea, and were placed - seemingly at random - on one of about a dozen and half tables spread across the courtyard, with none of the others with table-cloths or chairs, making it a fairly forlorn experience. And again, a dish advertised as monkfish came wrapped in bacon of which the menu made no mention. Breakfast was also a challenge - with all of the grounds and views the hotel has to offer, it's in truth mystifying that they choose to serve this in a greenhouse-type affair with a small courtyard outside, accompanied by the clanking and sounds of delivery drivers going back and forth. (A word here on those staffing breakfast, who seemed incapable of staying on station for more than a few minutes before disappearing into the kitchen for lengthy spells). Our room was fine - if a little tired - with a balcony overlooking the town, but the promise of an 'outdoor' pool was let down a little by there being no furniture to sit or lie on when we first arrived. My wife braved the grass alongside and had a fair few insect bites as a result. In fairness, when this was pointed out, sun-loungers magically appeared the next day, albeit of a fairly insubstantial kind, with no cushions. If all of this sounds like nit-picking, it probably is, but clearly we weren't alone - as we checked out another couple were regaling the (lovely) staff on reception with their own tales of poor or inadequate service. I can't help feeling that the setting here deserves a little more thought and care.