D’Browes Restaurant — Restaurant in District of Canberra Central

I’ve eaten at this restaurant a few times but this time I had experienced something I’ve never experienced before at any restaurant and I do not recommend this place at all.

First of all, I decided on the eye fillet as I love a good steak. Only to find out that it was a scotch fillet and the price had shot up an extra 10 dollars on top of it which makes little sense to me. Seems like the price should be lower considering eye fillet is generally a more premium and costly cut.

Secondly, I ordered the meat medium rare, which is how I always have my steak. As soon as the steak came out, I had two halves and just assumed that the steak had fallen apart while cooking. Presentation is not important to me so this didn’t change anything. However, one of the steak halves was clearly a different cut and was colder, over cooked, under seasoned and was completely different to the other seasoned and medium rare half I had. It was almost like they had run out of the meat and just given me someone else’s half eaten steak off their plate. It made me feel sick eating it and I have been feeling sick all day today.

Lastly, I never expect a refund for this kind of thing even though I think it’s ridiculous to pay for something that’s lower quality than you could get from McDonald’s. But after bringing this up with the staff, I received absolutely nothing acceptable from the them and the chef. Not even an apology! An acceptable treatment for this scenario would be to offer a round of drinks, a refund or even a partial refund, but after not even receiving an apology, that’s where I drew the line and decided I’ll never go back.

I’ve never had this happen before to me, even at a club or a pub where steak could be expected to be poor quality. I will never eat here again and I advise you avoid this restaurant. I’m embarrassed to ever think this was a fine...

There is so much to like about this restaurant. We visited from Melbourne at the recommendation of ex Canberra residents and we were expecting a good experience but honestly didn’t expect it to be this good! A great way to start is to be greeted by the owner/chef Damien who greets everyone it seems. He also seemed to visit every table in a very busy restaurant to explain the specials and just have a welcome or goodbye chat. I have never seen this level of attention from the “main man” before. And the food was magnificent and reasonably priced. I had snails done in a different way, tomato based. The juices soaked up by their in house sourdough. Then the duck - fabulous. My wife had a beautiful dish of tempura orange roughy. And yes we had room for dessert! Crème caramel and profiteroles - first class way to finish. We will definitely visit again when we return to Canberra. Thanks again...

Get one chef, add a splash of passion, then a bucket of talent and what do you get... D'Browes is the answer. One of the most underrated restaurants in Canberra, why this place isn't packed every night is beyond me!

Plusses... You can walk-in without booking most nights Food is to die for Fine dining at a cafe price Atmosphere, service A+ BYO only... not everyone's cup of tea but I have a good cellar so like to bring my own Easily in the top 5 of places in Canberra for a romantic date night

Negatives... Coffee was pretty bad, burnt the milk and weak. But I'm not going to deduct points as this place deserves full marks BYO... some people wont like having to bring their own bottle

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