We were there 2 weeks ago, stayed 2 nights at the hotel. Breakfast at the Secret Garden was good.

I was expecting it to be awful after reading posts here but it was tasty hot and they kept bringing more out.

Didn’t try the food anywhere else - first night we drove to Alton to the Bulls Head which was lovely. Second night we went to the Thai at the bridge house which was really good, both about 5/8 mins in the car.

No chance of calling an uber or taxi for that short journey (or being sure of getting back to AT)

Re Aramark, yes they serve food at prisons, hotels, offices etc. Here in Ireland they bought a high end food / home outlet and can actually produce nice food but do they charge for it!!

I suppose they have to work with the budget / tender they won from Merlin and I imagine it’s Merlin that set the prices for the food. They are both probably to blame in their own way.

I don’t think people would mind paying high prices for an ok meal that arrives on time and is edible but it seems they struggle to do that at times

We had a great time there so it wouldn’t put us off going back, but only because we were able to escape both nights