The Garden Berry — Restaurant in Berry

The Garden Berry is highly rated on google as one of the best café restaurant in the small town Berry. The café restaurant is accessible from either Queen St (takeaway) or the car park side (dine-in). The restaurant can accommodate a large crowd of people including dogs, whether you choose to sit inside or outside is your preference.

We arrived on a Sunday afternoon without a reservation, but managed to secure a table for 4 almost immediately after a short wait. As we sat more customers started queuing up without a reservation and needed to wait upto 30mins, so we were quite lucky turning up early (reservations recommended).

The menu is short and simple, after 11:45am you can only choose from the lunch menu which only has 9 dishes to choose from. We ordered a trout salad $26.5 👍🏻 vongole pasta $36 👎 and creamy chicken pot pie $27.5👌to share plus coffees.

While we waited, I was reading some google reviews and it was mix bag from other reviews saying poor service, average food and portion not worth the price. From my experience service is definitely a let down as we waited 45mins 😡 for our meals to be served. The young male waiter who took our order and served us lacked experience and table service. While taking our order for creamy chicken pot pie, we asked for side chips (extra $3), but got served a bowl of chips which they charged us $8 (eventually refunding us back $5 for their mistake). Food wise they are presented beautifully, the trout salad was delicious, vongole pasta lacked flavour and the chicken pie in a pot tasted nice, but if you’re expecting anything like a Shepard pie alike don’t bother it’s not worth the price. The pie needs more pastry or bread to pair with otherwise feels like your drinking creamy chicken soup. A bit of drama for the side chips, but with herb salt it actually tasted really nice. Price is very expensive, some dishes had reasonable portion while others were small. For 3 dishes, chips and 3 coffees plus surcharge costed us $120.

The most important thing to note and I was not expecting on a Sunday, is a surcharge, not 3% or 5% but a whopping 10% and public holidays with a ridiculous 15% surcharge. If you plan to go, dine-in Monday-Saturday to avoid...

Berry has no shortages of cafe dining options so one would assume that competition is fierce to deliver a dining experience that captivates locals and tourists alike. The Garden has so much potential to be a really great venue but sadly comes up somewhat lacklustre.

The unassuming shop front provides for entry off Berry’s bustling Main Street and there is comfortable seating indoors however the place to be is the alfresco area at the rear of the venue. The ambiance is great and bonus points for being dog friendly.

Unfortunately things start going down hill from here. With the crowds that flock to Berry every weekend wait staff should be well oiled machines providing seamless service. For a moderate crowd the staff on the day we visited were friendly but a little clumsy in their execution. As we waited for our order to be taken I overheard another table sending dishes back due to undercooked eggs and other unfulfilled requests… Not a good sign.

The breakfast/ brunch menu is also disappointing. There is no wow factor and it’s pretty much bacon and eggs in different forms and a few vegan/ vegetarian options to satisfy that demographic.

We ordered the Bacon and Eggs, Turkish Eggs and Sweet Bruschetta. We also ordered a round of coffees in varying forms. Let’s get the coffees out of the way first. The hot varieties were fine. Nothing extraordinary and the iced latte was also ok but served in a low ball glass; I would think most people expect a high ball when it comes to iced coffees, the ice to milk and coffee ratio just isn’t right otherwise.

The meals were not great to be honest. The Bacon and eggs were the worst of the group. I ordered poached but what came out was a gloopy gelatinous slop on a piece of sourdough. It wasn’t hot and frankly not a pleasant meal at all. The Turkish eggs are a bit like an eggy pizza. Not very imaginative but pleasant enough flavours. The Sweet Bruschetta hits the flavour and freshness points but at one piece of bread for $15 it’s not much bang for your buck.

All-in-all the potential is high but the execution is lacking… for a total of $70 for what you see pictured it’s not...

I visited with a few friends this morning and while it started off pleasant, with a lovely welcome, it took a turn. The restaurant itself is lovely with lots of charm and the girl who opened up was super warm and friendly.

One of my friends ordered scrambled eggs with a side of mushrooms and tomatoes. When breakfast was served, there was a hair running through the eggs. Then another in her mushrooms. This would’ve turned me off my meal but my friend didn’t want to cause a fuss and ate what she could. My shakshuka was so watery beneath the top layer of tomato and I ended up leaving it.

When we left, we weren’t asked how the meals were so I politely advised the woman who took payment, “I just want to let you know there was a hair in the eggs” to which she responded, “oh right ok” and then proceeded to ask what I wanted to pay for. I was gobsmacked at the lack of concern or even an apology. She then asked my friend what she was paying for to which she said, “scrambled eggs and a latte”. At this point the woman let her know the cost before backtracking and saying “actually I might just take the tomatoes off for the inconvenience, sorry about that”. Her tone of voice told us she couldn’t have cared less about our encounter and just wanted the interaction to be over and done with. Had she been sincere and apologised instantly, that would’ve been sufficient but this experience left us absolutely appalled. I’ve not often had to provide feedback regarding food but on the couple occasions I have, it has been met with absolute grace and...