The Kitchen — Restaurant in Adelaide

Just literally came home from our anniversary dinner tonight after a dinner at Sean’s Kitchen. The gist: there is no reason to rush back or even return to this restaurant.

Service: Upon arrival, the front of the house was friendly. As soon as he knew it was an anniversary dinner, he started with conversation. Good rapport. Asked his colleague to escort us upstairs. Did we feel special? Keep reading.

Seating: upstairs is more cozy but not as toned down as we expected it would be in terms of music. The gap between each table is tad bit close - close enough for you to hear what the others are talking about. We were then seated at the end of corner booth at the right - where you’d actually feel they just added a random table at the end and put two chairs in. I booked the table on 7/8/2023 (19 days prior), with a specific request of the quietest corner but instead seated beside the cutlery and plate cabinet, close to the stairs, and I was approximately 1-foot away from a neighbouring customer. But we then decided, it is meant to be: as most of the patrons on the main booth are coughing their guts out intermittently - so no, thank you.

Service: we had an 1830hr seating. Entreés were served 1900hr. Calling the wait staff is necessary to buss out the plates and for drinks for an upscale pub/restaurant. There is no display of interest on serving guests. Maybe they’re tired because it is Saturday night.

What we ordered: 📌 Grilled octopus - a good starter, not rubbery, delicious BUT could have been better if WARM. 📌 Bone Marrow - delicious! 📌 Popcorn cauliflower - my fiancé and I are 50/50 with this one. I liked it, he did not. 📌 Duck fat chips - the renowned chips: not impressed. Too salty - nowhere near good as Soto’s. 📌 350g Roam Wagyu Scotch Fillet: ordered blue to rare: Disappointing (shown in the picture) - thought it would be marbled like what wagyu is supposed to be like but nah, nothing special. Waste of $72. The peppercorn sauce was watery in consistency. 📌 250g Mayura Station Wagyu Rostbiff: I ordered medium rare with porcinni butter. Order came through, it was COLD. When I put the butter on top it didn’t melt instead, it just laid there. I asked the staff to try it, she agreed that it was indeed cold. They sent me a new one, this time was warm and the butter actually melted BUT it was rare 😂 I just went on with it because it might be a longer wait for a new serving. Can’t complain as the manager said it is on the house.

It was truly disheartening as the restaurant prides itself with their steak but I am afraid to say that the entreés were far more satisfying...

Food is excellent and waiters are nice but there is something seriously missing on a management level here. Very unorganized from the get go. Waiter was nice young guy who was doing his best and very polite. He was obviously embarrassed at just how many basic things on menu were 'out of stock'. It was oyster special week or something and they said there were no oysters. Not a problem for us because we wanted steak. No scotch fillet. No pineapples for their smoothies. No beetroot for their beetroot salad. Few other minor things they didn't have stock of and no big deal but waiters should have been told this stuff beforehand instead of us ordering stuff and then being told 5 mins later they couldn't do it. I can only imagine what would happen if someone had gone in for the Oyster week special haha. Anyway, they suddenly became busy in between our entrees and main and our poor waiter was now looking after another 3 or 4 larger tables. After 45 minutes of waiting between courses, we asked another waiter if we could place our main orders and they rushed over. (Again, the waiters/service effort was great, they were just waaay understaffed). Food came quickly and was excellent on all accounts. Steaks were cooked as requested. Crab pasta was good, swordfish was great etc... Took another 30 minutes after finishing mains before we went and grabbed another waitress to ask for desserts and coffee.

To top things off, we went to pay and they gave us the wrong bloody bill so we paid that bill, then as we were leaving someone approached us and explained the mistake. Anyway, excellent delicious food. Wait staff were lovely but for a place charging this much to be 'out' of so much stuff and to be so understaffed, with such long wait times to order/ errors is ridiculous. We spent over $1k here and our table of 8 people were laughing at the end of dessert about how many things went wrong. I'm writing a review on here so hopefully someone at the top reads it because I can only imagine how many seriously fussy customers would have convulsions at some of this stuff.

I'd probably give them another go because the wait staff were so polite and apologetic. Thank Christ the...

I never go and post negative reviews as I know how hard is to make a business and living out of it and also for the people who work there

But a very unfortunate incident while I was on Work trip in Adelaide and I know the business was made aware of this and you must have been waiting for it

-Went in and asked for Table of 1, I was been stared by a server at front who was a very arrogant guy and asked "Have you looked at the Menu " and was asked to check Menu in a tone that they didn't think I could afford a meal there.Meanwhile couple of customers walked in and were offered a table straight away .I won't disclose the servers name publicly but this was highlighted to Manager Finally hesitantly they took me to table and I asked if you have a table with two chairs on side as there were families and couples around other tables and answer was no that table isn't ready and meanwhile 10 seconds later it was allocated which didn't bother me but got into context when incident uncovered -After having very average food went onto pay the bill , a very arrogant man same one , the only thing he said out if his mouth was "Tap your card properly as it didn't work first time" that's all -Asked him to see Manager as I am not a guy who normally goes into conflict or raises my voice I was been told he is not around and I told him I will wait for him doesn't matter how long -Spoke to Manager about the way I was treated he was apologetic but didn't felt that empathy.I personally told him I don't want anyone in trouble but man should be taught how to respect Human Beings -Was so disturbed by this incident personally I couldn't sleep properly that night I kept on thinking was it purely because of my different ethnicity

I hope I am wrong the way I felt but it was very disturbing and hope that person build some respect and empathy for other Human Beings around and I hope also get the strength to share this with my work colleagues so at least my team and my friends doesn't contribute to the place that doesn't respect humanity .

I hope this send out a message to that Arrogant man and you know who you are and...