Hotel Central 1920

We enjoyed our stay and will come again. The standard was very high for the price, and parking and breakfast were included. We had to leave early, unfortunately, so we couldn’t try the breakfast.

We only stopped for lunch and didn’t stay at the hotel. The menu was broad, with everything from Italian and Czech food to Buffalo wings. As a vegetarian, I especially liked the thin-cut, crispy sweet potato fries. I’d go back just for those.

This is only about the in-house restaurant Friuli. We went three times. The food could be good or inadequate, and the service was friendly, but could turn into an expensive acquaintance. They also seemed to miss the individual customer. On our first visit, the restaurant was half full, just around the start of evening service at 18:00. We tried pizza, a burger, carpaccio, grilled lamb chops and PULLED PORK BURGER, and everything was well prepared. The waiters weren’t trained and didn’t know how to serve a plate or drink, but we could live with that. We tipped 150 czk. We left a knitted hat at the table and told the waiter as we left, asking if he could find it and return it when we had a Christmas reservation two days later. At Christmas dinner, we were among the first tables to order at 17:25. We were told there’d be no pizzas because they would take at least 60 minutes. We ordered fries and tomato wedges with drinks for our hungry four-year-old. The fries came after 40 minutes, and the tomato wedges, which we had to ask for four times, arrived after 60. The hat from our first visit hadn’t been found. Our older kids, aged 8 and 10, needed four servings of spaghetti before they were full. Their second round came before the rest of the main courses were ready. The adults’ food arrived 1 hour and 10 minutes after ordering: beef tenderloin, HAMBURGER “MEXICANA” and PULLED PORK BURGER. The waiter asked how we wanted the steak and we asked for Medium, but it came with no sauce. Sauce was extra, and the waiter hadn’t asked, so after 70 minutes we got a boring plate of steak and fries in a basket. The pulled pork was fine. The burger mexicana was medium rare after 70 minutes of cooking, and the waiter hadn’t asked how we wanted it done. It was hard to make eye contact with the waiters, who seemed to look at each other more than the guests. Nobody asked how the food was, even when we ordered extra drinks or drinks were brought over. Some of the girls worked as runners, mostly bringing drinks and clearing bottles and plates. A half glass of wine and a glass of coke were taken from me, but I got them back a few minutes after speaking to staff. The wait for the bill was acceptable at 15 minutes. Unfortunately, it included a lot of things we hadn’t ordered. Even after I pointed out the first mistake, the waiter didn’t check it, so we had to identify all the errors ourselves: 6x 0.5 beer, 2 x fanta and 0.5 liter white wine, totaling 782 czk. We were very disappointed, but told the staff we’d return on the 31st for New Year’s Eve. The New Year’s Eve restaurant was fully booked at 18:00, and we had pre-ordered dinner. The food was great except for a creme brulee that was bland and very stiff, with a layer of caramelized sugar burned far too much. The rest of the menu was fine, but service was almost as bad as on Christmas evening. Food was prepaid, and when we asked for the drinks bill, we were given only an amount on the credit card machine. After paying, we got the bill and saw it belonged to another table and was almost 150% more than ours. We really thought they would have learned from Christmas. And, unfortunately, there was still no knitted hat.

The hotel is right in the center, with secure parking just across the street for a few euros a day. The staff were friendly, helpful and welcoming. Rooms have been newly renovated and don’t have AC, though that wasn’t a problem. It’s a beautiful hotel in the mountain valley of the city Špindlerův Mlýn, and it can rightly call itself one of those places rich in culture and history. We’ll probably return in winter sey.