nel. restaurant

modern australian with basement setting & views of the kitchen. i had the once upon a time disney inspired degustation. each course designed with chef nelly robinson’s favourite childhood disney films. kicking off with mary poppins inspired “spoonful of sugar” and finishing with “seven moods” of the seven dwarves, each dish was well thought out & beautifully presented. 🙂 i enjoyed most of the dishes. the stand out dish for me was “bambi’s mum”, tender venison served with beetroot jus & crispy parsnip chips. the least favourite dish was “mad hatter’s tea party”. the quirky looking petit cakes were cute with funky colours but they were dense & hard as they have been sitting around for days. the taste was weird as well. 😨

great culinary experience,greatservice. it was a privilege to have chef nelly worked the floor explaining some of the dishes that were served. price was reasonable for the hard work they put into each dish but wine was overpriced. a glass of champagne was charged for $40.... 😬

celebrated monthsary, serving 8 course meals plus cheese board and a bottle of red wine 🍷 . i enjoyed the night with creative and unique flavours and dishes, it is definitely wows me.greatstaff and comfy atmosphere. i recommended to pay extra for cheese boards. so worth it. 😃

this place deserves agreatscore for creative alone. we came specifically for the disney inspired once upon a time menu. each course was inspired by a disney movie, the association was strong on most courses. if you look past the novelty factor, as a tasting menu, it had some highs and some lows. my favourites were bambi’s mum with the venison; under the sea with the crab & macadamia purée; bippity boppity boo with the pumpkin & ravioli. on the other hand, the mad hatter’s tea party, the red velvet cake was really dried & dense; the french lumiere was like a mini cheesy bacon scroll, but dried. the service was a bit uneven, we ran overtime to when we were due to vacant the table, but there were long lag between when we were finished with a course & were the tables was cleared. there was also a fire alarm from the hotel upstairs in the middle of it all. overall it was still an exciting night out.

made a reservation almost two months ago and went there on wednesday evening. had agreattime there
the service was good and food was fun and delicious
for starters we had some finger foods like popcorn.
the bread with walnuts was good and i’d love to eat it every morning for breakfast.
the ham balls in the beautiful glass were tasty.
i don’t like raw fish so no comment on that.
fish pie came with soup in a separate bowl. i ate the fish pie along as well as mixed it with the soup. the soup was salty so it was good with fish pie. but the fish pie itself was delicious enough.
i normally don’t eat goat but goat eating hay was great. it was crispy and juicy. the source was good.
the two desserts peter rabbit’s garden and shells on the sand were excellent! i really love them. as dessert they weren’t too sweet. it was refreshing.
in the end we had a little treat- ice cream on a small cone. the staff made it for us on the table. we had 3 choices of toppings to choose from. it was fun.
overall it was agreatfine dining experience for us. the only problem is that the portion of food is so small but it’s a tasting menu anyway. it’s more about experiencing rather than going home with a full stomach.

nel is agreatfine dining experience for all occasions. the atmosphere was very relaxed and warm. the service was exceptional, every dish served came with a story and the waitresses did agreatjob of expressing the meaning behind each dish. flavours were on point and the dishes looked beautiful. the whole course was very filling and the best dish was hands down the banoffee pie!! unfortunately the lighting was very dim so my photos didn't turn out so great.. none the less, everything wasgreatand i would come here again. 😁

one of the best degustations we've been to. my husband and i went for our wedding anniversary and it was agreatexperience. the atmosphere is very inviting and cosy.greatwine list and impeccable service. we were impressed with every dish, not just the presentation but the flavours too.greatvalue for money and we recommend it to all our friends.

nel is probably the only fine dining restaurant i have been so far that lacks both the appeal and the taste. there aregreatones - tetsuya's, sepia and bennelong. there are also creative, solid but not exceptional ones - est, ester, automata, lumi, etc.

at nel, i did not manage to taste any creative, solid or appealing dishes and some of them was badly done too. besides the starter jamon iberico, the rest were forgettable.

for instance, there were dishes where they were sum of a collection of unrelated ingredients (snapper) where i wondered why the sepia and grapes were added because they did neither enhance the taste nor the overall looks of the dish. what makes it worse is the fish was overcooked.

furthermore, while the daikon/watermelon was refreshing, the addition of the avocado was strange because it stifled its sweetness with its strong milky undercurrent.

the roasted pork belly was absolutely average and the sour milk did nothing to enhance its taste too.

the desserts were also average and seemed like you could find them at the supermarket. disappointed.

i'll preface this review by saying that before coming to nel i had already been to sepia and lumi the night before and for lunch that day respectively, so the bar was raised very high..
despite that, i had a thoroughly good 8 course dinner here. it might not have been quite up there but it was very close. the staff are excellent and the ambience in the room was quite cosy and romantic.
the dishes were all very good, withgreatflavour and textures. the desserts were very good too and the added theatre of the petit fours presented in a mini sweet shop display was agreatcreative way to end.

dined here last week and what a lovely experience it was. food was really good and the wine match was perfecr for every course. i highly recommend nel and although i wasn't wowed by any one course, it was agreatexperience and i will go back soon.

had agreatanniversary dinner here the other night. service was friendly and attentive and the price is so good compared to other restaurants of this class. the entrees were a bit hit and miss but the mains and desserts were delicious. i wish we didn't go for the black truffles for the lamb though. didn't really add much to the dish. the atmosphere of the place and the music selection is nice too. would definitely come back.

looked promising, dishes had a japanese influence to it.greatstarters but the mains were a complete letdown. entire meal took about 3 hours and we told them to serve all 3 desserts together because it was getting late. the starters were good and well timed in between. the 1st main came promptly, 2nd main took about 30min to come and 1st dessert came 45 min after we finished the 2nd main dish.  we had to prompt the wait staff to clear our plates too.  the mutton with asparagus didn't go well together, mutton was also quite tough. the chef's constant clapping to call the wait staff was also quite annoying. will not come back.

i’ve been hearinggreatthings about nel. and thought a lunch would be a nice introduction. i wasn’t disappointed. reviews talked about thegreatvalue for high-class degustation. for lunch, that’s four courses with an extra treat at the end. i sometimes think i’m just going to take one or two photos of a meal, instead of one of each course. it ends up i exercise control and not take a photo for one course (in this case, a delicious pea soup) and then end up taking photos of all the rest anyways. sigh.

special treat. no way the fault this place! took my fiancé here for his birthday and it was our first degustation experience (yes, we haven't been privileged enough)! had the tasting dinner with matching wines (menu is seasonal), service wasgreat(perhaps a tad rushed) but overall awesome experience! thank you nel!

great tasting menu and wine. excellent!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!greatservice, good wine list, interesting crockery,greatflavours - only thing i would say is a little more time between courses. def check it out.