Azure Bar & Grill — Restaurant in Byron Bay

Went for dinner and while the venue is nice the food is off the mark. Started with garlic and brie bread which was served on a bed of foil, it clearly wasn't warmed long enough as the cheese hadn't melted and I bit through a chunk of cold butter! Ordered the 30 day dry aged scotch fillet and while I appreciate the grill marks it literally tasted like burnt grill scrapings. To top it off the burnt onion puree which smothered the bottom of the steak was soo bitter and awful I'd imagine it tasting similar to road tar! If you could ignore all of that the steak was extremely under seasoned! While the meat was tender and seemingly of good quality I would have much rathered a $10 pub steak over that, especially given they specifically have a grill section on their menu. My partner had the half peri chicken which also had the burnt grill taste although to a much lesser degree. The chicken was also bland and lacking any savouriness or balance which you'd even get from a basic roast chicken. Extremely disappointed given...

It’s rare for me to send food back to the kitchen, in fact I can’t remember the last time this happened - however the steak was inedible. I notice other reviews describing it as chewy and under-seasoned and it’s sad to see this is still the case. Salad, duck, veggies and desert were excellent. My main issue is with the service. After sending back the steak, nobody checked in, asked if we would like an alternative, or even asked what the issue was! When checking out, the maitre d’ made no mention of it, and charged the full amount for the meal. When I asked if she knew the steak had been returned she said ‘I heard something about that’ and offered no further comment or apology. I get these guys are probably transient holiday-makers who don’t actually care about their work, but if I was the owner of this restaurant there is no way I would want my customers treated in this way.

Anyway - there are many redeeming features here, but the service and steak need some attention! Thanks for a mainly positive...

Probably the best Napoli (Naples) style pizza I've ever had outside of Italy, they must have imported talent and ingredients to make it this good. The crust is chewy and has a sourdough note, the fior di latte is generous and mouth watering and the sausage they use is devine. We had the tea cocktail and the negroni cocktails were delicious and full of gusto, it was so strong I had to wait for the ice to melt a bit before drinking. We both thoroughly enjoyed the handmade pasta with prawns, it's a big serve and there are lots of prawns, I would advise you to move the chilli oil to one side as it gets a bit oily if you don't eat quickly. To finish we shared a sweet cocktail with aquafaba (it tastes like egg whites but is actually vegan). The staff are extremely professional and attentive. As we went in November 2020, no discount was offered for Accor plus...