Hotel Norg

The owners were very nice, and the hotel was clean and well appointed. It’s welcoming and friendly, with parking across the road and a convenience store and gas station close by. The restaurant isn’t run by the owners and was fully booked, but there are good alternatives nearby. Excellent all round.

A clean, comfortable little hotel in the North, with very friendly staff and a good breakfast. There are nice restaurants nearby and a small market next door. Groningen is about half an hour away by bus.

The hotel is clean, tidy and quiet, and the restaurant took two hours to serve two courses from its set menu. The restaurant isn't run by the hotel owners, though. We might have booked again, but the owner's insistence on a five-star rating has made us think twice. They approached us at breakfast because we'd initially left three stars, then contacted us again after we got back to the UK to ask why we hadn't changed it to five, as they had insisted we do. I always give three stars, wherever I've stayed before, because every place has room to improve. Maybe we'd have had a much better experience at Hotel Norg if I'd just held back from reviewing it.

The garden behind the restaurant was lovely, the service was great, and the local beer was good. But I wasn't satisfied with the food, especially for the price. The vegetarian carrot risotto sounded promising, but it was undercooked, a little cold, and tasteless, with lots of raw red onion in big chunks. Thin slices with some vinaigrette might have worked better. The whole boiled carrots on top were cold and mushy, with honey (?) on them. Roasting them could have added some flavor and color. The plain boiled potatoes were locally sourced, which was a plus, but they were cold. So were the sautéed vegetables, which also had large chunks of raw onion. After that, trying the five desserts was a nice change, but none were made in house. Maybe this just isn't the place for vegetarians.