Kasteel Van Ordingen

This review is about the bistro of the Ordingen castle, located in a suburb of of 3800 Sint-Truiden, Belgium. My wife and I visited the bistro on the evening of 10th September 2023. We arrived in time to find the last available table outside. The atmosphere and the clientele were what we expected to find in this lush surrounding. My wife ordered the halibut, I had the salmon. Although pricey and served in small portions, both dishes were perfectly prepared and meticulously finished. My mousseline sauce was so excellent that we both enjoyed every drop of it. I had a glass of white wine of the house to go with it. Perfectly chilled and a perfect match. Although my wife and I consider ourselves very spoiled, we were pleasantly surprised about the quality of these dishes. However, that cannot be said about the staff. Leaving the apprentice out of the equation, I found the staff lacking in refinement and experience. The manager turned out to be a scruffy looking individual, who distinguished himself in a disrespectful way; when serving the drinks he managed to squeeze the lower part of his body between myself and my wife, making physical contact. His assistant clearly did not cope with the number of clients. Possibly through a lack of experience, or due to fatigue, he did not pay attention to his clients. As a result, it took a long time to place orders and get the bill. Nevertheless, we wish to pay our compliments to the chef, who is probably oblivious to the poor performance of the rest of the staff. We will be trying out the hotel restaurant very soon.

Really liked the location of this hotel, set in a lovely countryside setting and close to the town of Sint Truiden which we enjoyed exploring during our stay. We travelled from Amsterdam and it was a very easy journey by car. Despite not usually opting for more ‘traditional’ style of a hotel, we thought the rooms had been thoughtfully refurbished in line with the history of the building and were very clean. The spa was very small and needed to be booked in advance. We were also a little disappointed that the hotel was not able to assist us in making an advance reservation at the main restaurant during our stay, as we would have preferred not to eat in the more casual restaurant on-site both evenings. This was probably made worse by the noise from the restaurant keeping us awake until very late due to guests / staff hanging around in the downstairs hallway (our room was the first at the top of the stairs). All in all, we expected a little more from our stay, and would probably look elsewhere next time we book a weekend getaway.