Barooga Hotel — Restaurant in Barooga

WOW! What an experience, unfortunately not a great one. If it weren’t for the wait staff being lovely and presenting excellent customer service, this would have been a 1-star review.

We visited the Barooga Hotel on the 27th of December. It was an incredibly busy night, and realistically we should have been told this when we called to get a table, 30 minutes before we arrived. The wait staff were non-stop busy but maintained an excellent level of calm and great customer service.

The wait time for food was well over an hour, which we accepted when we ordered. The bar staff seemed new, but we were patient and understanding that experienced staff can be hard to find at the moment

For the entree we ordered salt and pepper calamari. This came out in fairly good time. Although it was exceptionally salty, the calamari was cooked well.

Our mains was where our night turned sour. My partner ordered a medium-rare T-Bone Steak and I ordered the risotto. When my partner cut into his steak in multiple places (edges and centre) it was clear the steak was much closer to well-done than medium-rare. We called over one of the lovely wait staff, and showed her the centre. She went off to speak to the kitchen, and then the next thing we knew, the owner came out.

To be clear, we were in no way looking for an argument, nor were we in any way aggressive in the way we had approached staff. We were quite understanding the place was busy but we just wanted what we had paid around $40 (public holiday surcharge).

The owner came to our table, at first, we assumed he was the chef as he made no indication as to who he was. He was immediately aggressive and confrontational, exclaiming that they had served over 400 meals that night and everyone was exceptionally busy and basically saying we should just deal with it. After my partner calmly explained he just wanted what he requested and paid for, the owner then went on to exclaim that the kitchen was now shut, and he could either take it as is or take a refund. We opted for a refund.

The owner then stormed away with the meal and one of the wait staff processed our refund. He then returned to the table with the plate to show us that right near the bone was medium-rare, again taking an aggressive tone exclaiming "this is medium-rare". I certainly am not a chef, but when you order a medium-rare steak, you expect the centre of the steak to be medium-rare, not only the meat around the bone. He then further went to exclaim that he didn't want the food so he would package it up and my partner could leave. Meanwhile, I still had my plate of risotto in front of me.

Before leaving, we made sure to show our appreciation to the wait staff who were nothing but lovely and pleasant. I thank them for keeping great customer service and a sense of calm in busy circumstances. It was a trying night, and it really showed their great character.

However, based on the owner’s behaviour, we will not be returning, nor will I be recommending this place to my...

Ordered entree and two mains. Mains came out one by one, tried to ask waitress about entree but was ignored both times. Began eating expecting entree would come but no, it didn't. Nearly finished when I managed to get a staff member to speak to kitchen. Joked with her about it being an entree not dessert. She apologised and said it won't be long. When it came out it was burnt to black. I asked waiter if we could have one that wasn't burnt, but he ignored me. The bar waitress refunded the entree, took photo and apologised. We don't go out for a meal to waste time on apologies, we go to eat and enjoy a chef prepared meal not to be refunded for inedible food. Never again as the whole dining experience was a real let down. The stir fry I had was limp thin slithers of salty veg and dry pork bits but ate it without complaining, if I had served a salty stir fry like this to my family I would have apologised for the salty flavour and overcooked veg and I would have been embarrassed. I was recommended this hotel for meals, but I can't...

Visiting Cobram from the Yarra valley we were highly recommended to have a meal at the Barooga pub. Courtesy bus was available and the welcoming staff very friendly. However the meal was so not up to standards as described to us. Started off with the Cobb loaf and pumpkin dip which had been forgotten about and came out after everyone had eaten there entrees. The cob loaf was very nice but half way through there was a very large black hair. We complained to staff and was greeted with a “sorry “. The medium rare steak ordered was so rare that it was impossible to cut with the bread and butter knife we were given and even harder to chew. Our evening finished up with the waitress taking our glasses when clearly there was still wine in the glass, so we had to abruptly tell her to leave the glasses as we hadn’t finished drinking. Very...