The Wine Barrel — Restaurant in Gold Coast City

We booked to have a Mothers Day lunch with my Mother in Law, we have dined and had a fabulous time over the many years but our visit on the 10th May fell far short of a lovely experience. Arriving for our booking at 12pm we were put on a make shift picnic table with a cloth obviously due to the amount of bookings taken and not enough seating. So after being asked by 3 staff members flat or sparkling water we had this under control. I was then informed by one lady ÿou do know this is a tapas bar and meals come out here and there". Good to know I guess, we have dined here many times over the years. So the 4 of us ordered the 6 oysters each, 3 x with the tempura only and I asked if I could have 3 tempura and 3 with the ginger/soy, which needed to be confirmed if this was ok (wow). No soy no ginger so this was pointless. We also ordered the quail, pork belly, 2 x beef cheeks plus broccolini, yep came out here and there, can't be that hard when the wait staff asked if you want the order as entree and mains. So we were lucky to be able to order one round of drinks, the second order after 45 minutes got lost and re-ordered, we did not order cocktails maybe that was the issue. To be honest the whole lunch was disappointing compared to our past experience, we now live a 2 hour drive away plus the fact that my Mother in Law deserved a lovely day out. Seriously, your front of house staff seemed more like people dragged in to assist, not once did anyone care or ask if all was ok, I guess it was obvious. The most experienced person was behind a bar making cocktails. So at the end, we were then asked by all 3 staff if we would like desert, well we did discuss with family during the week we would love to take your donuts home but after the lunch, nope. If you are going to exceed your limitations with bookings make sure you have the appropriate staff to look after your customers, yes I have 35 years experience and was so disappointed.

The 2 stars are for the Quail and Pork Belly, not the Beef Cheeks - dry and no jus and potato very dry...

Absolutely terrible organisation and experience. We paid top dollar for Mothers Day Lunch and it took them 1hr to just bring out glasses and water to the table at the start. They ridiculously over booked to make the most money out of the Mother’s Day festivities with absolutely no communication and compensation throughout the day. Extremely disappointed and will never be back!!! We use to be locals and it was a great experience. Poor management and under trained staff who were not able to cope with the quantity of people. Such a shame and very disheartening! Hopefully the owners of The Wine Barrel learn from this experience as I am sure there will be a lot of disappointed customers from today. We even overheard a table next to us complaining profusely about the extremely slow service. I do sympathise with the staff, however even when we went in to pay and explain our frustrations they just said that one of their juniors over booked by 40 people accidentally. How does management not pick that up, let alone how is it not documented when they organise the table chart as they had set time settings during the day. Not the way I wanted to spend Mother’s Day at all, very disappointing!!! The saving grace for the day was the food, hats off to the chefs for doing their best. We had about an hour wait between one plate of tapas to the next including the kids food. Do not recommend for...

We had been waiting for an opportunity to dine here.. its close by and presents as something different.. having been to a few tapas bars before, i was expecting exceptional flavors accross a few cuisines as it wasnt type specific.(eg spanish tapas bar). The selections were great and read well, but the flavours were very bland.. when something says chilli i expect some chilli heat.. not stupid hot, but something that lets you know you're eating it... this place isn't fine dining, its just ok eating.. the plates are about $20each with little food on them. We had 5 between two of us, and were not content.. personally, i consider $20 for two spring rolls a bit steep.. drinks were very pricey too, with a below average bottled wine selection that was way overpriced.. if youre a big eater, you'll be needing 6-7 plates yourself.. these plates should be sitting on about $15 and the drinks are probably about 20% to dear...I always expect to pay a premium when going out, but this is a resturant in mudgeeraba, half in a carpark, with zero scenery.. theres two options close by that have far better food, and more reasonably priced drinks with a better selection. Service was very good, meal presentation was very good, but sadly thats where it stopped for me.. theres better flavours and value for money in the neighbourhood. sorry to say i(we) wont be...