Alcaufar Vell Hotel Rural & Restaurant

We went for an anniversary meal that had to become a marriage proposal. They ruined the entire celebration by "forgetting" the cake (confirmed by phone the same day), by complaining we only received bad manners and even threats Not recommended !!!

Where do I begin. Rewind back to October 2023, Myself and my Fiance Chris visited Menorca in search of our wedding venue for 2024 and came across Alcaufur Vell. We had a meeting with the 'owner' Pep, who promised us the world.....little did we know he only wanted our money, didn't respond to emails regarding very important wedding information, he did not even have the decency to meet with us when we arrived a week before the wedding and decided to walk past myself, my fiance and my family , who had all paid a small fortune to stay at the hotel for a week for the wedding, or even acknowledge or say hello to any of us. The hotel itself is beautiful, however this is very overcast by the management and the issues we encountered for the past 8 months. Albeit being immensely stressful, we received very blunt and rude emails from the owner ( surprisingly after we had paid the deposit )! And he was very unhelpful with helping with the arrangement of the wedding and helping us with suppliers... We were also informed, again after we had chosen our wedding menu, and paid a substantial amount, that the cost of the wedding meal was almost DOUBLE what the restaurant menu price had listed, and when this was disputed, we were told ( again by the owner ) that this was because of a ' special event ' price. Even when the food was EXACTLY the same as what was being served in the restaurant on a daily basis. The owner also emailed us and tried to charge us 150 euros to cut a small 50 person wedding cake and amongst other issues, he pushed us to have appetisers that we couldnt afford, stating that he doesnt agree to our guests being 'starved' before the wedding meal. On one occasion, whilst we were disputing the wedding food cost with the owner, he advised that he would cancel our wedding if we didnt agree to the price, albeit this was 2 months before our big day, and he already had most of our wedding payments. The hotel room myself and my fiance had for the week was the Junior suite, a lovely room, however the walls are in need of some serious TLC as they are all crumbling, to the point that we had to clean off debris from our suitcases every day. The coffee / minibar was not restocked every day, unless we 'begged' them to revisit our room. The room also had a distinctive rotting smell near the corner, to which we were trying to locate and resolve during our stay, as none of the staff members were particularly interested in helping.. Breakfast is nice, albeit very small portion sizes, and quite cleverly priced to try and catch you out to spend 18eur, per person, each morning. The cleaning team dont change your bed, I had a small cut on my finger one evening and unfortunately this showed on our bed linen for 3 nights, even after asking if they would change the sheets, highly frustrating to say the least. If you are considering having this as your wedding venue, please know that this is not an easy ride. I was brought to tears on a number of occasions...

Alcaufar Vell is a wonderfully situated boutique and luxury hotel set in the wonderful Menorcan landscape. It's a short distance (c. 10-15mins drive) from Mahon airport, with plenty of surrounding towns for travellers to explore for evening meals. The main house is absolutely beautiful, and the double rooms offer plenty of space for two people. There is a nice swimming pool, just a step away from the main house, with free roaming tortoises as a surprising, but pleasant addition. The hotel is sufficiently distanced from civilisation to enjoy an incredibly relaxing and peaceful stay, however I would recommend hiring a car, as this is by far the easiest method of transport on the island. The food in the restaurant in the evening is very good and very reasonably priced. I would recommend trying the food in the evening at least once and then exploring the surrounding towns for restaurants as there are some good restaurants all across the island. Breakfast was also good, with a number of options to choose from, and a hot food option. The first morning service was quite slow, taking over an 1 hour to get all our food. During our stay the hotel was booked for a wedding for one of the days. Given the size of the hotel (I would guess c. 20-30 rooms), a 80-100 person wedding felt quite disruptive. The staff didn't make it clear to us that there would be a wedding happening during our stay until I asked them the 30mins before the wedding guests were due to arrive. The staff did try to be accommodating once I drew this to their attention. Overall we really enjoyed our stay at the hotel, and for the majority of the time felt incredibly relaxed. My only fault would be that we felt at times the service was slightly inconsistent and also given the size of the hotel, also having a wedding occurring during a guest's stay does feel disruptive.

Having read negative reviews of this place I felt the need to say we enjoyed it. The welcome was very friendly. All the staff were efficient and pleasant. The room was huge and very comfortable. Would have been nice if the bar or lounge were bigger. Breakfasts were excellent even if the way we had to choose from various categories on the menu was a bit unusual, but appreciate that by doing it this way there was no waste. One afternoon I sat outside to read and almost straight way a waiter came to ask if I wanted a drink. The restaurant was nice quality but for me it felt rather hotel like than restaurant. On the last evening it was busier than usual and we had to wait quite a while to be served and when it came the waiter had mixed our order with another table which really should not have happened at a place at this level. Neither of us complained and just struggled and got on with it but that was the only disappointment with our stay.

Stayed here on half-board just over a week ago & had lovely time. The characterful & quirky historical feel of the hotel & gardens just suited us and generally we found the staff very friendly and warm. My bed was huge & so comfortable. Breakfasts were copious & delicious with huge choice. I greatly enjoyed my dinners too.

Spacious rooms in either the old house or converted farm buildings Extensive grounds with great walk down to the coast and village . Pleasant helpful staff . But probably one of the worse breakfasts we have ever had in a hotel of this quality. So called "fresh"breakfast at 13 Euro consisted of a couple of small slices of stale bread plus some unripe fruit and a slice of cheese. The evening meals were also disappointing and were either overcooked or so raw that we rejected it. Should do better !!