Luxury Wolverhampton hotel opens new restaurant after five-year £500,000 project

The Park Grill restaurant and bar opened at the Park Hall Hotel in Goldthorn Park on September 5, marking the culmination of five years of work and half a million pounds of investment in making the space and building up the restaurant.

The new restaurant has a central bar area with a range of premium lagers and ciders, as well as Guinness and a full spirits and wine selection, and features a range of seating options around the restaurant, from tables to sofas, and an adjacent room for private events.

Park Hall Hotel general manager Vinit Vadhawkar said the restaurant had been a long-term plan for the hotel as the number of rooms increased and spoke of the process towards building it and the hurdles it faced on the way.

He said: "This all goes back to the period pre-Covid for when we started planning the restaurant as we had had an Indian restaurant called Anju's which had a small capacity and could only sit between 35 and 40 people at a time.

"We found that the bedroom occupancy was starting to go up, so we knew that we were going to need a larger restaurant and we put the plans in place, but then the pandemic happened and because of the contract we had with the Government for the crown court, it got delayed.

"However, as soon as the contract was finished, we started work on the restaurant, breaking the wall between Anju's and a conference room and getting in the structural engineers to do the work, which cost around £500,000."

Mr Vadhawkar said he and his staff had worked with designers to build a restaurant that was multi-purpose and could be a place for breakfast in the morning, lunch and then become an a la carte eatery and grill in the evening.

He said that the opening days of September 5 and 6 were huge successes, with people coming from across the community to eat there, as well as guests at the hotel, and he said that 160 people were there on opening night and 190 the next.

The food options are a big part of what has made the Park Grill so popular to begin with, with the afternoon teas for two proving very popular at £40 with tea and coffee, £50 with prosecco and £60 with champagne.

Mr Vadhawkar spoke about the main restaurant menu, which contained three lists of Lebanese, American and Indian food across three courses.

He said: "What we have seen in this area is there is a lot of Indian restaurants and pubs which have converted into Indian grills, but we found that people also want something different and not always what you can get in a normal restaurant.

"What we've done is provide a lighter side with the Lebanese food, which is a Mediterranean-style food that a lot of people are into right now, and then we thought about where people could get a good steak around here.

"From that, we worked out there's only really Miller and Carter and a few other places, so we also created a menu with a range of options as you can come here and you have the choice of a steak or of an Indian meal.

"With that, we've also tried to do dishes that you wouldn't normally find in other restaurants like Faldari Chaat, which is made by one of our chefs and is freshly cooked in a tandoori oven with special sauce."

Mr Vadhawkar said the restaurant was the next step for the hotel to make itself a must-go-to venue.

He said: "We have a large car park and other facilities like a spa, jacuzzi, gym and other facilities, plus we will be installing EV chargers for people driving electric cars and we are working to install a paddle tennis court as well.

"We have Premier League football teams staying here as well, so I hope that they and other guests will be able to come and enjoy the new facilities and have a great time."

To find out more about the restaurant and menu and to book a table, go to the Park Hall Hotel website.