never returning. won't be returning. incredibly rude staff, too noisy, very overpriced,smallportions.
at first i thought i thought it was a nice venue. polished wood and steel interior reminded me of what an apple store might look like with restaurant and a view. however it's open floor plan with the kitchen, wine tasting and restaurant all in asmallroom no bigger than a double garage meant smoke from the kitchen filled the room and the hard furnishings reverberated sound making conversation near impossible. and this was before we even met anyone.
then we encountered the staff and service. when we arrived for lunch at 12.30pm the place was filled with people and food, but not patrons and those enjoying lunch. no, we were told we were too early for lunch and could not have a table because the staff were still prepping all the food for the afternoons service. unorthodox considering the time. instead we were ushered into a corner where a man clumsily poured us a few wines for tasting and pushed a bill for the samples in front of us to take to our now ready table.
a casual waiter then sauntered over (who we later discovered to be the one of the brothers who runs the business) showing very little interest in our group briefly mentioned that "plates aresmallshare plates and cost $11 each or the whole menu on the board (12 items listed ) for roughly $32 give or take a few dollars". this should have been my first inkling that something was amiss - how do you not know how much your own 'degustation' costs?!? one of the members of our group noticed the first item on the list to be bread with olive oil and dukka for $11 - bit steep but the waiter assured "its a whole loaf of bread". another was quite keen on the last item, the blue cheese with maple figs so quickly checked that was included and this waiter rolled his eyes and nodded. rude. naturally we went for the degustation. in fairness thesmallplates of food were well presented and delicious but lets be straight, they are extremely small. another note was that they brought out dish after dish with little or no time to finish the one before resulting in too many plates for thesmalltable we were seated at and the waiter began taking away plates that were not finished. as the ninth dish came out a female waiter explained that this was the last dish. when we politely questioned about the remaining 3 dishes (including the blue cheese) she politely said she would check. the next moment the owner presented and rudely said "whats the problem here?". as members of the group all politely explained the situation he responded with an emphatic "rubbish" and proceeded to say "its a shame when customers try and squeeze every dollar out of a restaurant, which obviously you do, instead of just enjoying the meal". never in my life have i been spoken to so rudely. at that point we got up, paid and walked out disgusted! and i can guarantee you this, none of the members of our party will return and it left a bitter taste in our mouth (mind the pun) for what should have been a pleasant lunch.
a final point, not only is it natural at a venue where meals are extremely overpriced to work out the most cost effective way to enjoy a lunch but who writes a menu where it is cheaper to buy every item individually then the whole menu. may be a good wine maker and an ok chef but obviously has no idea about business.