The Gap Tavern — Restaurant in Brisbane City

FOOD & DRINK My wife and I dined at Gap Tavern on a quiet weeknight in early Oct. The Gap Tavern is part of the ALH Group, whose stable includes the Brunswick Hotel, the famous Royal Exchange in Toowong, the Indooroopilly Hotel, the Newmarket, the Morrison and many other fab pubs around Brisbane. We’ve dined at a number of them and always found the standards to be consistently high. We’ve never been disappointed at an ALH Hotel, and the Gap Tavern was no exception.

We started with two refreshing cocktails, the espresso martini and the vodka and orange juice. They were both excellently made and delivered personally to our table by the friendly bartender. Great way to start the evening.

As seniors, we were able to avail ourselves of the generous seniors menu. We ordered four items to share: calamari with lemon, aioli, chips and salad ($14), beef rissoles with peas and mash ($14), a garden salad ($9) and stir fried Asian vegetables with ginger and soy ($9). Every dish was delicious. The calamari was fresh and chewy with a crispy batter, whilst my rissoles were cooked to perfection and accompanied by peas and a dollop of creamy mash. The wholesome salad and crunchy Asian vegetables were the ideal complement to the calamari and the rissoles. Clearly, only the best premium grade ingredients are used. All the dishes were neatly presented to the table on elegant white crockery. Serving sizes were generous and we couldn’t have been happier with our meals.

AMBIENCE G.T. is a large place that’s airy and comfortable, with indoor and outdoor seating. Being a warm spring night we decided to sit outdoors, which was cool and pleasant although this is the kiddie-friendly part of the place with a little play area. There were a couple of large family groups with kids, some of whom were a bit out of control, running up and down on the timber flooring. If you want a quieter, more sedate atmosphere, it’s best to sit indoors, which isn’t such a bad thing, because the indoors dining room is a plush and elegant space with low mood lighting, carpets throughout and sturdy wood and steel furniture. The ambience there is calm, laid back and relaxed, with good acoustics.

SERVICE For the first time at an ALH Hotel, we decided to order using the app. It’s a fairly simple process of scanning the barcode, which is affixed to a little disc on each table. The menu will appear on your phone and you can simply order and pay from there. After ordering, it didn’t take long for the meals to arrive. Our young lady server was neatly turned out in a smart black uniform. She was friendly, polite and efficient and meals came out quickly. The only disadvantage of this kind of ordering is that all the food comes out at once, even though we had intended the calamari to be an entree. I guess one needs to call the waitress and make a special request.

COST With our seniors' discounts, we paid a modest 75 pesos for two cocktails, an entree, a main meal, a plate of vegetables and a salad. That’s solid value for money in these hyperinflationary times, when our little Aussie peso is becoming more worthless by the day.

PARKING Easy, free parking in the car park just outside the venue. At one end of the car park is the handy well stocked Dan Murphy’s liquor store, so if you’re still thirsty after your meal, you can stock up there.

SUMMARY We had a pleasant evening here and everything ran smoothly. This is a first class venue, that’s airy, spacious and comfy with different seating options. Food is outstanding, service is efficient, friendly and attentive, and the app ordering makes the whole process easy. Add to that clean toilets and free parking right outside and you have all the ingredients for a perfect dinner with...

I've heard from a few people that this is a lovely place to meet and have a meal with beautiful views of the hills and bush land surrounding the Tavern. It's been a long time since I had visited this tavern so I was looking forward to it.

However it was a disappointing visit to say the least. We were strongly encouraged to use the app to view the menu and order. It's not my first time around the block with using this technology so it's easy to use and quick to order and pay so you can just leave at the end of the night.

However i had this feeling things were not working out with the kitchen when I could see meals being served to tables around us who arrived after us. We asked about our meals 3 times - after 30 mins, after 1 hour and at the 1.5 hour mark and kept getting told it was going to be another 10 mins, the kitchen was short staffed and it could be a problem with the app. You should never express excuses to customers about your service. I know from being heavily involved in a family business for 26 years myself.

All we ordered was a chicken burger, seafood basket, steak and seafood linguini - nothing too elaborate to take almost 2 hours to make. The pub was at about 80% capacity with patrons but were all ordering at different times.

The shift manager that assisted us with our concerns did offer a full refund after our meal but I was still keen to at least give them a second chance if the food tasted good. Very very disappointing. Everyone else at my table said their food was mediocre in flavor. Mine, had NO flavor at all and I had to ask for some chilli sauce. No garlic or herbs, just bitter rocket mixed in with the linguini that really didn't have any place being there, overpowering the almost absent flavor of the seafood. Probably the worst seafood linguini I have tried and I have had this dish in restaurants and cafes all over the Eastern Seaboard of Australia and overseas.

We were looking forward to our meals despite the kitchen delay, having come all the way from Coorparoo and Samford!!! But not once did the waitress come to our table in the first hour to check on us. And despite being offered a refund, this will undoubtedly take min 5 days to be visible in my bank account because it is not directly from the Tavern but from the app provider they use for menus and purchasing. And when I went to the toilet, it had not been cleaned, a horrible mess was left and it smelt atrocious. So I'm sorry, whilst I am a level 8 Google reviewer and prefer to give positive feedback on places I visit, I was not able to find anything complimentary about this experience.

THE BITTERNESS OF POOR QUALITY IS LONG REMEMBERED LONG AFTER THE SWEETNESS OF LOW PRICE...

Although having had a poor dining experience on our first visit to the Gap tavern some years ago, we decided to give them another try to see if they had gotten any better since we've last been. Upon arrival at 5pm on a Saturday, with the place all but empty, we were eventually greeted by the barman who upon asking if we held a reservation or not we responded that we did not. We were then adruptly handed menu's without even looking up from the table plan, still given no eye contact he half pointed out to the deck telling us to pick either table 5 or 7, with a distinct sense of disdane toward our being there. We weren't but two steps away from him when he asked which table we would choose to which I responded that I would like a chance to first locate and see the actual tables before choosing since we were offered the choice. Table 7 was already reserved with a sign stateing so, therefore we sat at table 5. We were rather shocked at his attitude as we we're the only ones in the deck area of the resturant. We ordered the Stockmans pies hoping to get a decent fresh pub made pie made with fresh pastry. It certainly sounded good on the menu which stated - Tender Graziers beef with bacon, mushroom, tomato, onion, and a hint of garlic in rich beef gravy encased in golden pastry served with mash potato mushy peas and onion gravy. The wait was about 15 minutes. What turned up was a typical standard truckers pie one would expect to get at a bakery that tasted like it had been sitting in the heated pie warmer or display cabinet all day, therefore had a very hard crust. As for the rest of the meal, it was served with cold mushy peas and cold mash potato. Each mouthful was an unpleasant mixture of warm pie and cold potato and peas. No sign at all of mushroom bacon or the tomato. When the waitress came to collect what was left she did not bother to enquire how the meal was, we asked that she relay to the chef that the meal was presented below satisfaction with cold mash potato and cold mushy peas. We waited for follow up, apology or response, however when the waitress returned to the decking area, there was not even as much as eye contact given from the waitress, let alone recogniciton of our complaint. At this point we came to the realiastion that the staff at Gap Tavern do not care about there patrons, therefore we decided to leave and write this review. That will be the last time we dine at the Gap Tavern. The person who greeted us was downright unwelcoming to say the least. They clearly had no interest in customer satisfaction or retaining repeat business. Spend your money elsewhere or end up paying $20 for $4.95...