Went to the Belle Epoque for a wedding, and whilst I understand that the establishment is not actively promoting itself to parents/carers with young children, I found their attitude to young guests unacceptable and out of touch.
I have been to other weddings at venues not geared up for children, where nevertheless the hosts have been welcoming and set aside a room for nappy changes and even tried to entertain the children in their own way, through providing hotel pens and paper.
We came prepared with actvities to entertain our young family, aged 5 mths, 2, 4 and 6 yrs, but I was not prepared for the attitude I received from the hostess.
Whilst waiting in the entrance lobby room for my husband to return from dropping off our coats, and clearly holding drinks in each hand, I was asked by the hostess to move my baby out of the way into the ajoining room - actually I was told to move him - particularly annoying when my youngest is clearly a little girl wearing a pretty dress for the occasion. I explained that I was just waiting for someone and would move along in a minute, and received a snooty response I'm just trying to make sure noone treads on him (baby daughter on the floor at my feet in a car seat), followed by a disgruntled noise. What a welcome! (not!).
We did eventually move along into the side room once my husband had eventually caught the attention of the staff taking coats. Clearly the staff need to look a little lower down when doing this task to notice people wearing coats who are not yet at adult height.
They do not have highchairs - and we were told this by the bride and groom in advance - we were told we would have to bring our own - and presumably carry it ourselves upstairs to the room in which we were to eat, along with our 4 children and necessary baggage. We opted instead to just bring our car booster seat for our toddler - a good job, as there were no offers of any assistance! If you come with young children to the Belle Epoque, you have to sort yourself out. They don't even possess one fold-up highchair or strap-on booster seat. Why not? These cost less than one of their main courses! It seems they don't wish to accommodate young children because they simply do not want you there. Not acceptable for a venue advertising for the wedding trade.
Of course when it came to needing a baby change, it was clear that there isn't one. They have a male and female toilet, but that's it. Nowadays most places I go to have accommodated this need by installing a baby-changing pull down flap in the disabled toilet. The Belle Epoque doesn't, but there again, it doesnt adequately cater for disabled guests either. My husband's disabled uncle had to enter the building using the back entrance, through the gate. He had to sit in the upstairs room and miss the meet and ?greet part of the wedding - no canopes and welcoming drink for him then. The establishment allowed him access to the upstairs honeymoon suite to use the bathroom there, but as this was not a bathroom suitable for disabled guests, he could not use the toilet there in the normal way. Talk about making a disabled guest feel even more left out of society. Really unacceptable and surprising to discover given current legislation for disabled people.
I did ask the group of staff loitering at the bar whether there was a baby change anywhere. The response was no! with many exchanged glances, as if I was asking a totally absurd question. My husband then asked the hostess, who simply told him to change our baby in the downstairs room on one of the seats, as if this was a totally normal thing to do and he was a dimwit for asking. I am sure that if we had chosen to just do this without prior consideration, this would have been met with even more snooty glances.
In the end, I did change our baby in the downstairs room once it was emptied of guests, but I question the health and safety implications of this. I am careful to leave things as found, others may not and may not even have a changing mat with them, as commonly nowadays disposable mats are provided in the parenting rooms. Furthermore, nowadays in an increasingly eco-friendly world, many parents opt out of using plastic nappy sacks. Imagine the smell then in the Belle Epoque's toilet dustbin! Of course, I need not say that there was no nappy bin, but I do at least carry nappy sacks with me.
The toilets were left unattended and so hygiene dwindled as the night progressed. My husband found a syringe discarded on the toilet floor in the men's. I am thankful that I didn't allow my son to use the toilets by himself.
Did I raise these points with the establishment? Answer-no. What would be the point when they simply dismiss guests with children as they apparently do.
The food was as you would expect from seeing the menu - small portions, overpriced. No efforts made to cater for children. They were given a smaller lamb shank, but as anyone with children knows, no youngster is read more
