Hotel Hermitage

I was at Hermitage for a conference, not as a hotel guest, and lunches and dinners were served there. The grounds were beautiful, the hotel was easy to get around, and it’s very close to the beach. That’s where the good parts of my experience ended. The lunch and dinner servers were incredibly rude, and there weren’t many vegetarian choices at lunch. I eat halal, so I usually choose vegetarian at places like this because explaining my dietary needs can already be difficult. Several times at the buffet, I asked which options were vegetarian and was pointed to food that contained ham. When I noticed what looked like ham in my food and asked what I was eating, the server explained the dish’s name and history but completely ignored the meat. I don’t expect everyone to know, but I wear a hijab and am visibly Muslim. Once I actually ate ham before realizing what it was. I had to ask three different servers about the little pink cubes in my dish before someone answered. I told the manager I couldn’t eat ham, that I’d been told this was vegetarian, and asked him to take my plate away. Later he came back to ask if everything was okay. I said no and explained what had happened, but he walked off while I was still talking. At another dinner with a set menu, I was given meat and politely asked for the vegetarian menu. One server went to swap the dish, but then another came over and put the same meat dish in front of me. I explained that I’d asked for vegetarian and that the other server was coming back with another plate. A different server then came from behind and yelled at me. He said they didn’t know I wanted vegetarian and that I needed to tell them next time. It got so bad that people at the next table had to ask him to stop and just get me a vegetarian option. There was another vegetarian and a vegan at my table who had no trouble getting suitable menus. Both were white. I don’t know whether that had anything to do with what happened, so I’ll leave that to the readers’ discretion. I cried at the table in front of everyone. I dreaded mealtimes at the conference because I was anxious about accidentally eating something I couldn’t have, worried I’d upset the servers, and felt like I was always doing something wrong. I can’t speak to the hotel stay itself, but that dining experience is enough to put me off coming back.