We had a really awful experience at the Grand House. It was our friend’s 30th birthday and his partner had organised for us (group of 4) to do the 5 course tasting menu. There are so many wonderful places to eat in Portugal with amazing service and respect for dietary requirements but this certainly isn’t one of them. Their disregard was so dangerous. The birthday boy has dietary requirements and can’t eat pork or shellfish, so his partner had contacted the restaurants 8 weeks in advance to confirm these dietary requirements and the swaps for the vegetarian menu options for some courses. Something they had done before as they had stayed in the relaix in other countries. We also reminded the team at the grand house immediately when we arrived at the hotel of his dietary requirements and we could see a written note had been made on the booking and so felt assured they listened, but we shouldn’t have been because the dinner and service were an absolute disaster. We arrived at the restaurant/bar and we were taken to a side room to have our drinks. We asked for a menu and were told that’s not how the bar works, that it’s all ‘concept drinking and dining’ and so we should tell them what kind of alcohol we like and they’ll make us an original drink. We asked for two amaretto sours and two old fashions, 65 minutes later, our drinks arrived. We chased our drinks order multiple times during that hour of waiting, and we were told they would be 2 more minutes every time. We weren’t even brought water until 40minutes in. When the drinks arrived, they told me and my friend that don’t have any liquor like amaretto and so they made our sours using red wine and kiwi, which would taste similar, needless to say the drinks were horrible but after waiting so long we just wanted to start our dinner and it was meant to be a celebration so we didn’t make a fuss. We were taken into the main restaurant and just left for 15minutes before being served water. The restaurant had 3 other booked tables of between 2-4 people. It really wasn’t busy enough to justify the poor service. Then the first ‘snack’ arrived for the 4 of us, a plate of Parma ham. At this point our friend’s partner began to manic as it became clear that the dietary restrictions and her repeated email reminders and supposed confirmations had meant nothing. I speak fluent Portuguese, so asked in Portuguese for them to double check the rest of the menu they were serving had no pork or shellfish and had been substituted with the Vegetarian options as requested. I was told it was a one off mistake and the rest of the menu would be fine. Then the first plate arrived with some normal fish and we thought things would improve but how wrong we were. The next plate arrives with a giant prawn on the birthday boys plate. At this point again in Portuguese, as I didn’t want to make a scene as it was his 30th birthday and we wanted it to be a fun night, I reminded them of his dietary requirements as the wa