One of the newer traditions at work is that a bunch of us go for pub lunch together on a Friday – have a few beers, and catch up on what’s been going on. A nice way to spend an hour before the weekend.  Our normal haunting grounds are The Dolphin or Trinity Bar, after we gave up on The Porterhouse‘s extremely variable (and more often than not just plain bad) pub food.

We heard that The Beresford Hotel had re-opened after a major refurbishment, and was getting rave reviews – so, it was decided we’d try it out.  Our first clue that it wasn’t the best idea should have been that we couldn’t get in for a Friday lunch until some time after January.  But hey – it’s popular, and it’s getting good reviews, and they can get us in on a Thursday – close enough is good enough, right?

The second clue should’ve been when we arrived – it’s a *very* nice place, not so much a pub restraunt as a full service five star italian restraunt that just happens to be attached to a pub. 

Anyhow, we booked for eight people,  called back to adjust to nine, then when the group of us turned up there were ten. A pause from the Maitre’d and they set up another table to accomodate us. Then a few more people turned up – over the course of five or so minutes we ended up with 12, but since we were on one of the benches, we just squished up and the staff set some more places and pulled in another chair.

At first, when there were ten, we were given the A-La-Carte menu – a very long menu with a dazzling array of dishes to be had.  When the Maitre’ D noticed the 12th person arrive, (just as the rest of us had decided what we’d like) our menus were taken back, and switched to a more limited (banquet?) menu.  Of course, as we all joked as the menus were swapped – almost none of the things we’d decided on were on the more limited menu.

Then we noticed the fine print – minimum of two courses: $60. We enquired if we could just have a single course – after all, this was lunch, right? We had to get back to work in under an hour.  The Maitre’ D’s somewhat snarky comment was “Well, that’s new”. But back to the a-la-carte menu we go, more decisions again, and we all decided on a mains.  

Of course we didn’t realise that most of the ‘mains’ weren’t what you’d call mains in Australia – they’re going with the traditional Italian catering of a single named item. So, we’d be expected to order perhaps an Entrée, Salad and a Mains – at the very least.

Perhaps this wouldn’t have been a problem had this been explained by the wait-staff, and had mains not been priced at $30-$60 (Roast Pork Belly: $32, Prime Ribeye: $45 [approx 300g], Crab Tortellini (3): ~$45), with each of the additional courses costing usually $15 – $30 each. 

When the food arrived, I must say that it was exquisitely presented – what you’d expect from a five star restaurant, and obviously not a pub restaurant.

It was obviously as we were presented our meals that we realised why the Maitre’ D made the snarky comment, and that an order of ‘Slow Roasted Pork Belly with Peaches’ or ‘Prime Ribeye’ was just that – with little more than decoration on the plate.

I might have been more forgiving if perhaps the pork belly was particularly great – unfortunately mine was somewhat dry and fairly much devoid of any flavour.

I wasn’t the only one a little disappointed – I know at least one person went and got something else to eat on the way back to work. But some of the group did particularly enjoy theirs – the Tagiatelli and Gnocchi was apparently quite good.

So, all up I think there’s equal parts failure on both ends – it was our fault for not realising it’s not a pub restaurant (despite it being a restaurant in a pub) plus having more people than expected turn up. It was also, perhaps, their fault for not providing particularly good information about their style of service up-front. Our question about could we just order a single course should’ve triggered that information to be provided – at the very least.

Would I go back? Perhaps – but I doubt it. At the very least it would have to be for a dinner, and when I was feeling particularly rich. I wouldn’t budget any less than $120 a head for dinner, excluding any drinks. As it was, it came out to roughly $56/head for us.

A solid ‘meh’ and a half out of five.