cool change bar & eatery

nice place with good variety of wines, tapas and mains. has a cool little bar out front with friendly service. we had a reasonably lengthy wait for our mains on a busynightbut food was really nice and all in all would recommend

needed a place to eat on a summery sundaynightat 8pm and decided to book here. we had a cured salmon entree, pork loin and lamb mains. was honestly surprised at how good the food was! truly delicious with high quality ingredients. the atmosphere and prices pretty good too. service was quite friendly and fast.

we had booked a table for a group of 4 on the saturdaynightof the toast weekend. the menu was very disappointing with very limited options. cheese fondue, duck, beef wellington, goats cheese soufflé and fish, the latter of which was sold out as was the asparagus. so if you're not into cheese you've 2 choices. no pasta, no chicken dishes. i was amazed that this was all that was on offer on what was obviously going to be an extremely busy weekend. poor planning. also extortionate prices, i think the goats cheese soufflé was around $32, which i think is over priced for a vegetarian dish. we ended up leaving and heading over the road to the martinborough hotel and eating in their bar which had heaps more options from their bar menu alone. we've had an average meal here previously also, though had been prepared to give it another shot. we will not be going there again. on the upside they didn't charge us for our drinks which we'd already ordered on arrival, which was appreciated.

without hyperbole, the worst service i've ever had. anywhere. ever.

my friend and i left gobsmacked.

we called early in the day and were told there were no tables until 8.30, but we went and sat outside and had a couple of wines and some fries earlier in the evening. 8.30 came and went, and our booking seemed to have been lost. finally we had seats, and an hour after ordering, we got our food.

my friend ordered the steak, which came with fries and a lump of dry salad. the steak itself was overcooked and tough. my fish special appeared to have frozen stir-fry veg in it, although the fish itself was very good. when the waitress came to ask us how the meal was, my friend said she was honestly a bit disappointed in her steak. our waitress immediately got aggressive, and gave her a lecture about how "steak and fries are steak and fries. what did you expect?". my friend said, rightly, this is a $34 steak, so she expected better quality than this. the waitress then said, sarcastically, "well, what do want me to do about it?" she was so rude and aggressive that not only did she neither apologise or help us, but my friend had to eventually ask her to leave our table so at least we could eat in peace.

when we went to pay, we told the man behind the counter what had happened. he first told us that's what you get when you don't make a booking. then, when we told him we had made one, he said "well, whatever". when i said that wasn't really the issue, he said the waitress was just a grumpy person - and when i said that wasn't really good enough, he said "well, welcome to martinborough", threw the menu he was holding down on the bar in front of us, and walked off.

i've never been treated so rudely anywhere - let alone a restaurant where we'd spent well over a hundred dollars on what was meant to be a fun girls'nightout. i understand they were busy, but all it would have taken was the waitress to just say "i'm sorry to hear that - can i do anything to help?" my friend didn't even want her steak cooked again - a drink off or some sauce on the side would have covered it. being busy is no excuse to treat your customers like dirt.

"terrible" pretty much covers it.

had a great meal here on a busy fridaynight- food was excellent, service was 100%. highly recommend cool change for a relaxed meal in great surroundings. the beer can chicken for two is a great option and the cinnamon bread and butter pudding is fantastic.