Emme James Street — Restaurant in Brisbane City

The chicken was nice, the cocktails were good and so was the pita. Not much else positive to say about our experience at Emme on Valentines Day.

For a 7pm booking, we only got seated at about 7:30. Once seated, we found out that only the $138 pp set menu was available. Both myself and my partner aren't big fans of seafood which for some reason was almost the entire banquet, so we had to substitute out half the courses for a plate of broccoli and some pickled vegetables as nothing else was prepared. The only references to the Valentines set menu I could find was a small banner on the top of the website which gave no more information, and an Instagram post on 15th January stating that the a la carte menu WOULD also be available. The venue manager also decided to lie to me and say it was on the bookings (which it wasn't, I checked both emails). She then, unprompted, went on to double down and say she checked the back end of the website and it was definitely there! How interesting that the venue manager is moonlighting as a web developer? Yeah right. Like the venue manager is going to bother going in to the back end of the website on Valentines Day dinner. I understand you're trying to cover your ass, but dishonesty and trying to shift the blame onto the customer is not a great look.

The service was also abysmal. We were waiting 45 minutes between each course. They forgot our food twice (I thought a set menu was supposed to get rid of these mistakes?). First they forgot the pita, and we only got it towards the end of the night because I asked the waitress if the courses were all meant to come out in order and we never received it. Next, about 45 minutes after another course, a waitress only just realised we were still waiting on food and had to come out and ask us what we were waiting on, which was the same as the table beside us. We laughed about it with the table next to us and they joked that they just wanted to go home. We felt the same, as we'd been there nearly 3 hours at this point.

Regardless, at the end of the night, we still had to pay full price despite not receiving the oysters, kingfish, and prawns. They offered a small coupon for next time, which I thought was a bit of a joke considering we just paid $350 for food we didn't want, and they likely saved that much by not having to give us three main courses of seafood.

I understand that the majority of my complaints are just circumstantial and likely wouldn't happen any other day if it wasn't Valentines, but we had a genuinely dismal...

People dont bother going here!! It doesnt belong in the james street location or newfarm neighbourhood! Beautiful interior but its hype has been built up by social media, you’ll waste your money. I genuinely never leave reviews particularly negative ones but the experience was so crap and i’m disappointed because I was looking forward to trying it! I would not recommend emme when the calibre of other dining offerings available in brisbane these days is so high. Interior is beautiful and the wagyu steak was nice, but its pretty hard to muck up a piece of wagyu 6+ sirloin. The compliments end there. The food is overpriced considering how average and unmemorable it is, and very under portioned, $12 for 1 butterflied prawn is a joke! What are 2 people meant to do with 1 prawn???? The pippis were very odd, they had a distinctly cheesy flavour which was really off putting and the charred brocolli was…. broccolli. But honestly your service AND staff are truely one of your biggest let downs, theyre rude, uninterested, uninformed and very unattentive, its clear that most of them have no experience working in high end restaurants, and they overall just make you feel unwelcomed. We had 3 waitresses through the course of the lunch and 2/3 were aweful. We got disinterested looks, raised eyebrows when ordering, quizzical expressions when asked how big the share plates are, very poor descriptions, soon after arriving my friend was warned we only had 1 hr to eat which seemed incredibly strange, we were sat for 20 mins and no-one came to take a drink order or explain the menu, i just got offered water as a women walked by our table. Waited another 20 for our 1 beer and aperol spritz to come out. Our water was never topped up again, no-one checked again if we wanted another alcoholic drink during the rest of our time there, they kept trying to clear plates that were obviously not finished, no-one asked if we enjoyed our meal. After being told we had 1 hr to dine we were left sitting to chat for ages, no bill, no offering of tea or coffee, infact the waitress didnt even know if they made coffee and had to go ask! And the place was not that busy to reflect the poor service. The checkout waitress said nothing to us at the end, no enquiries as to our meals, nada, just swiped our cards and said see ya! Paying $240 for this sort of crap and shitty attitude waitresses really grinds my gears, do...

We went out for Mother’s Day dinner yesterday and had booked a table inside the venue, as it offers a far nicer atmosphere than the outdoor area. My family is visiting from Korea, so we wanted the experience to be special.When we arrived, the hostess asked for our booking and immediately began gesturing for us to sit outside. I politely said, “We booked for inside,” and she responded, “On our side, it says outside.” I then showed her the confirmation on my phone, which clearly stated “inside dining.” Instead of acknowledging the system error, she became visibly agitated and insisted that they were fully booked inside and that “everyone who booked has booked inside.” My mum calmly reiterated, “She booked inside, we would like to sit inside,” but the hostess — wearing a brown set — became rude to my mother, which was incredibly upsetting and disrespectful, especially on Mother’s Day. She continued to say " we cant sit you inside its fully booked." This back and forth went on for at least 5 minutes. She then rolled her eyes and said, “Well, I guess you can have a table from 5:00 to 6:30pm.” I said that was fine. She gave us a blank stare and repeated, rather pointedly, that we would need to leave by 6:30 — as though accommodating us was a major inconvenience. We agreed again, but she proceeded to seat us in a back corner. Before walking off, she turned to us and said quite curtly, “We will have to kick you out by 6:30.” At that point, I was furious. I replied, “We get it, you’ve told us three times already,” as it was incredibly disrespectful to speak to us like that — especially to my mum. She looked shocked that I responded, but frankly, she wasn’t expecting the same level of rudeness she had been showing us. At the end of the night when we went up to pay she had the audacity to ask my dad "how much would you like to tip." Nice cherry on top.

The rest of the staff were absolutely lovely, and the food was excellent. It’s just unfortunate that her attitude left a sour taste at the start of what could have been a truly...