Diana
Garden Sheraton Majestic ****
As
I am looking back to my visit at Diana Garden, I don't know how to begin this
review. Lets get back at the very beginning.
I have been looking for some places in
Milan - not for apperitivo, but a place with a cocktail menu. I found Diana
Garden which is an apperitivo place with a cocktail menu. The websites were
promising. You can read there: ´´Meet the most honored and famous people from
fashion industry in our bar...´´ and so on.. and I decided to make a
reservation.
You can have the websites in english,
italian, french or german. If You want, You can fill a special request form,
especially in italian. If You will have the websites in english as I
had, after putting all your details and pressing the ´´book the table´´ button
to make your reservation, You will be transfered to another window. There is going
to be written that ´´ your request has been sent. We will be back to You in
within 48 hours.´´ This information is written in italian only. Then
You can wait untill the next day and then You will recieve an e-mail from them,
that You have/don't have the table booked. In italian only. I have arrived on
time to the reception and there was an apperitivo manager (this is my personal
description of his job, not an actual position). I introduced myself and I said
that I have a reservation for an apperitivo at 19:00. He checked his papers,
confirmed my reservation and showed me the way. On the way he asked me my room
number, which I didn't have and then he stopped me and said that the main Diana
Garden is for hotel guests only and I cannot go to the bar, because there is a
private party. I asked him, if it is possible to see the bar or the garden
another time and I have been told, that there is always private party. He
returned me back to the reception and then he showed me my table
behind another entrance….
Diana Garden itself has insane possibility to be the most amazing place for an aperitivo in Italy. I visited one bar in Barcelona, which is called The Magic Forrest – the whole interior is made as forrest, but everything is fake. Diana Garden is a natural garden inside the hotel complex with great chillout intimate or romantic (as You want) atmosphere, fresh air and dimmed lights which are hidden in trees above You. In the center of this garden, there is a fountain and next to it You can find a white tent connected to the entrace to the hotel. In this tent, there is a main bar with giant mirror behind it, which makes this very spacy place even bigger. Every piece of furniture is white which perfectly fits to the garden. It's October now and some dry leaves are falling off trees already, making the atmosphere even deeper. Maybe it is a bit chilly outside, but thanks to the fact that the entire garden is completely surrounded by the hotel structure, it is not windy at all so youwon't feel cold anyway. Then it is getting dark and even if there is a DJ playing his chillout set, You can still hear the water squirting in the fountain….
However, You will never see the fountain,
unless You are a hotel guest, because the garden is divided to two parts. One
is, as I said already, for hotel guests only and the other part, which takes
just 1/3 of the whole space, is for ´´people from outside.´´ These
two parts are naturaly divided by a line of tables. Maybe You can pass in
between them, (actually hold on a second. I am sure that You have to pass
between them, or at least over them. There is a table with an evacuation plan
right above it, and the arrow of the direction in which You have to run, in
case of emergency, is pointing right to that line of tables - maybe somebody
turned it as a joke, or it is a mistake) but I have been told that I cannot go
there, so I didn't try.
I realized this emergency evacuation plan,
because I was sitting there unnoticed for more then 5 minutes. I quickly passed
through the menu and I chose my cocktail. To make a choice was easy for me. As
I was looking to the gin cocktails, I noticed the Hemingway Special
cocktail…..When I was working in our bar, this cocktail in its long drink
version was one of our bestsellers and until now, it belongs to my most
favourite cocktails over all.
Than I stood up and I went to check their
apperitivo service. There was nothing much to choose at the beginning, but the
food was great and during the evening some parts of it have been changed, so I
have no complaints about that. One extra point : there was a piece of beef
steak with fried cheese on a stick. And with no doubts – that was the most
amazing food, which I had that evening.
But unfortunatelly, those were the last good points for Diana Garden. As I took some of that food from their service, I stopped by this apperitivo manager and I asked him, if I can make an order. He asked, what I want and after he sent this order to the bar. It was my Hemingway special and a bottle of water. Then I returned to my table and I was enjoying my food.
After 5 more minutes one waitress came to our part of garden, with a wine glass of some cocktail and a bottle of water. I realized, that this should be for me, but I also realized, that she has no idea to which person she was supposed to bring it. I didn't say anything, because she have seen me before at least two times, sitting on my own with an empty table. This time she passed right in front of me somewhere to the back of the garden, then she didn't notice me even on the way back and she just went back inside the hotel. After two more minutes +/- she appeared in the entrance with her apperitivo manager, who was pointing in my direction - No introduction of the cocktail, no questions if that order is really for me or any further informations, she just put it on my table and that's it for my order….. That clearly proves disinformation and disorganization of people working there. Why it was necessary to write here, that she went for help to apperitivo manager? Because he knew all the informations about the order and even that I am not a hotel guest. After all, I don't wonder anymore that personell was not communacating much with guests through all the evening - if the staff is not talking to each other inside the team, You can hardly expect more…..
Then she asked me my room number, which I
didn't have (!) and then she asked, how can I pay. I paid in cash and she took
the money and after 3 minutes she came back with the change and a receipt. On
the receipt was written 30 eur. How can I pay 30 eur, if a drink is in a price
of 15 eur ? I took a menu and there are non alcoholic drinks in range of 6 – 10
eur and on the other site, there is written in a small letters, that in time
between 19:00 – 22:00 the minimun price for consumption is 15 eur. So basically
it means, that if You are not hotel guest and You want to have a drink on this
apperitivo time, You will always pay 15 eur regardless, what are you going to
have, because Diana Garden opens at 19:00 and closes at 22:00. One more thing
about the menu. It says that drinks at the bar are 12 eur and drinks at the
table are at the price of 15 eur. Since You do not have accsess to the bar at
all, writing that is irrelevant, too.
As the waitress was putting those two
things in front of me, I noticed that the table was not ballaced and it was
swinging from side to side. You may call me picky, but I am
ultragigahypermaximega allergic on that. In my past I have been in places where
beer was old, fruit was rotten, but still a stock to sell, spiders and
rats were constant guests and where carpets were made by mold. Buut even
there, all tables were stable.
Now
the Hemingway Special
So
basically in our bar we were making it as a long drink : 4cl white rum, 2 cl
Maraschino and freshly squeezed lime, finished with grapefruit juice.
Hard-shaken. However the original recipe is following : 4 cl white rum, 2 cl
grapefruit juice, 1 cl fresh lime juice and 1 coffee spoon of maraschino.
Hardshaken and served in a frozen cocktail glass.
If You want to put to your menu a famous
cocktail and especially, if You will write there the origins of that cocktail,
please follow the recipe and a form of its preparation, too. I can
asure You, that in 1921 Ernest Hemingway didn't ask Constantino Ribalaigua to
prepare this cocktail in the blender and he wouldn't be pleased either, if this
bartender would bring him that in a wine glass. Actually, I can go even a bit
further. In the recipe from Diana Garden You can find an item ´´sugar´´ . It is
known, that Ernest Hemingway was drinking Daiquiri without sugar - Well, now I
am being picky… (Note - Hemingway Special is a twisted Daiquiri)
To
describe the cocktail I recieved, I would write this :
The
amount of ingredients is unknown to me, however if it would be shaken and
served in a different glass (and Diana Garden has a very nice glassware) as a
cocktail it would be fine. I would appreciate especially the use of fresh
grapefruit juice. But the fact, that this drink was made in a blender with tons
of crushed ice, is destroying the whole potential of the cocktail.
Let me explain what will happen, if You use these ingredients to make a
´´frozen´´ version of this drink:
The small ´´seeds´´ of grapefruit are
lighter, than the rest of the drink and thanks to the crushed ice, they will be
trapped on top of the liquid, creating a very bitter layer. Underneath, there
is a cocktail, which You have to drink fast, because if the crushed ice will
melt before You will finish, You will destroy it with a lot of water. And then,
You cannot drink it fast, because it is a cocktail and I refuse to drink it
fast 1st of all, and 2nd of all it is still a lot of very cold liquid and that's
simply not the way to enjoy it. You can do ´´Frozen Fruit
Daiquiri´´ (which is a twist itself, by the way) from pretty much anything sweet.
Grapefruit does not work.. And then You see the pinky old foam in the empty
wine glass…. That does not look great either.
Now, lets have a look at the service. I
would love to get at least a one small plate to put the rest of the garnish or
wet napkins to any other place, than into the ash tray. I heard that if guests
are putting these things to the ash trays, it's rude. I apologize for being
this rude, but I didn't have any other choice…
So as I was sitting there, holding
my cocktail glass in one hand and holding the table with the other one, I
realized many things : I've noticed that orders are getting to the
wrong tables pretty often, that there was a broken glass on the ground and
nobody cleaned it for the whole night, that waiters were entering and leaving
the place with their trays empty, while apperitivo manager was carrying some of
the stuff in his bare hands, including clean shampagne glasses, while he was
holding them in a wrong way and that some of the personell were running. I don't
care, how busy You are, I don't care how strict is your boss or how stressed
You are. If You are a waiter, do not run. Ever.
Then I finished everything and I was just
waiting if somebody will offer me something else or clean the table. Since I
paid (and that was a long time ago) nobody even looked at me. Then two more
guests came to the their tables (independently), they got the drinks, then they
left and then both tables got cleaned straight after. While I was still sitting
there, alone and lonely … And then maybe after ten more minutes, finally one
waitress came to my swinging table and pointed at the empy stuff and asked, if
she can take it away. (´´...naaaaaaaaaaaaw, just get me fork and knife and I
will eat this glass…´´)
After my table was finally ready for new
guests, it was time to get out. I left unnoticed and nobody even greeted me. Do
You want to ask me, if I could meet ''some of the most famous people in fashion
industry ? '' I could not even meet the bartender, so I think that the answer
is pretty clear.
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