The Mount Lavinia Hotel is known for its beautiful views and history. We dropped in at the Governor’s Restaurant to check out the food, but it didn’t quite live up to our expectations.
Food
The main attraction here seems to be the buffet, though we tried the a la carte menu. When it came to mains the options were quite limited with only around six meat dishes, a few pasta options and a few other Asian inspired dishes. They did have a good amount of salads and appetizers.
Let’s start with the bread. Until our dishes were ready we were offered the customary bread basket with 4 different types of buns. The buns tasted fine but they were cold and clearly not fresh, which was pretty disappointing since fresh buns wouldn’t be tough to come by with a buffet going on.
As a main we tried the Fussili Al Salmone (Rs. 1,300). This was a pasta cooked in a tomato cream sauce, with smoked salmon and cherry tomatoes, topped with grated parmesan cheese. The portion size was ample, the pasta and salmon were cooked perfectly with the creamy sauce bringing it all together.
The pork chop (Rs. 900) was nowhere near as good as the pasta unfortunately. Since it came with just the fries, the pork chop had to be the hero of the dish. We asked for it to be cooked medium, but what we ended up with was cooked unevenly, with the meaty portion being cooked well done and the fatty portions being rare.
Ambience and Service
The Mount Lavinia hotel is gorgeous, with it’s colonial architecture, wooden furniture and white washed walls. The Governor’s Restaurant reflects just that. We chose to have our meal inside the restaurant since it was scorching hot outside, but you can also have it poolside or even on the terrace overlooking the beach.
The service time was not too slow, though what we did notice was that the restaurant was under staffed. The waiters were friendly, courteous and attentive to their best effort but it was clear that with the buffet going on it was difficult for them to manage the crowd as well as the large area they had to cover. So we quite often found ourselves hard pressed to find waiters.
Conclusion
The Governor’s Restaurant is known for its buffet, but their lunch menu was not quite as impressive. It’s still a good place to try out with the historic atmosphere and gorgeous view of the beach, but the food still needs more finesse and consistency.
