I have just returned from an evening at the dark horse and feel so strongly about the poor experience I thought I would email some feedback rather than publicly rant on social media. First of all my details. My wife and I booked a table for two on Sunday evening at 6pm having previously had a drink with you on Saturday and had an enjoyable experience. Although my credentials aren't terribly important, as the opinions of all customers are important, but I am a hospitality and catering teacher, having a vast amount of experience in the industry and I have written about food and cookery in Swansea for the evening post, Swansea life and a taste of Wales publications. Some really good points about your restaurant. The service is really lovely. April, our waitress tonight was wonderful, friendly and helpful. She actually wanted to know how our experience was and when I initially said it was 'ok' she probed and wanted to know if anything was wrong. So I would give her a lot of credit for actually wanting to know, she could have walked away. The other thing that is lovely about the dark horse is the decor and the ambiance. The colour scheme and lighting is just right for a sophisticated and intimate evening. Now to the bad things. First of all you had our booking wrong. When I popped in on Saturday the waitress told us we had been booked in and had the seat by the window which was great for us. I was surprised when we arrived that we didn't have a table at all as someone was sitting at our reserved table, despite clearly us being on your reservation list as the waitress showed us! Thankfully a table was leaving so we could at least sit and have a drink. I ordered a bottle of sauvignon blanc and it was tepid. I sent it back and was given another bottle that was ok, not crisply chilled, but ok. The wine came in a champagne bucket with ice on the bottom and the bottle of wine on top. This does not keep wine chilled and I had to ask for a couple of glasses of water to put into the bucket as apparently your sinks aren't big enough to put champagne buckets under. Thankfully it was only an average house white and not an expensive bottle. On to food. We ordered 7 dishes in total and out of those dishes only 1 was acceptable. We ordered the following. Cockles and tempura prawns to start. The cockles were generous but terribly over cooked and with no seasoning at all. No salt, no lemon. The prawns were ok, not really a tempura batter and again badly overcooked. The mains we ordered were the burger, which actually was good but could have a toasted bun. The eggplant dish was a scandal. Literally some cubed aubergine and cherry tomatoes on a skewer. No flavour at at all and a strange, curry flavoured green dip. I despair at the lack of imagination here and not a cheap dish. We had the halloumi stack which turned out to be a terribly overcooked and deep fried mess. Inedible. We also ordered both fries. The parmesan and truffle ones were luke warm and the rosemary and salt ones had not a hint of rosemary. All in all it was terrible. We learned that the head chef wasn't there and that you'd only been open a few weeks but these aren't really excuses to hide behind. Some of the errors are basics, tepid wine and overcooked food. Some other things are management issues. I really wanted to enjoy, and I anticipated a great experience based on your Instagram page. As I said I don't want to say all this on trip advisor or Instagram but I thought I would give you some honest feedback from an experienced chef / caterer and someone who really wants good things in Swansea