Alchemy Bar & Restaurant — Restaurant in Launceston

6 of us had booked in November 2024 for dinner for the recent Marcia Hines show on the 14th February 2025. Alchemy has always been our place to go for dinner when we go to a show at the Princess Theatre. On arriving and being seated we were told by the young lady that because it was Valentine's Day it was a $65 per person x 2 course menu with a glass of complimentary bubbly. (Your paying for the little glass of bubbles in the $65) We were unhappy with being told this because all of us didnt want a 2 course meal. So we spoke to the head in charge that we had booked 3 months ago for the restaurant,that when booking it that it had not been mentioned at that time that it would be Valentine's Day with a Valentine's day menu or even when I had rang to confirm the booking the fortnight earlier that it had not been mentioned that it was going to be a x 2 course menu at $65. per person. So instead of us all being spoken to politely by the head manager he rudely looked at us and stated that if we didn't want the menu we could leave the restaurant or eat in the other (bar) room and choose of that menu. As we were there early for the show a 7.30 start we stayed in the restaurant as we were already seated. However in ordering our meals the experience of usually great food and service came undone. The sticky pork bites which 5 of us had ordered ( were not sticky at all) they had absolutely no sauce over them, they were cubes of pork belly that were tasteless and chewy to eat with a coleslaw that was bitter and had barely any dressing through it. For 5 of us our main meal were the steaks all of which all were cooked very nicely, but the broccoli was not steamed properly, was still very hard almost raw and the roasted potatoes were unseasoned and tasteless. None of us had a gravy it was a little amount of jus on the plate. The 5 of us eating our steaks were half way through the meal when I had to call the young lady across and ask her where my husbands fish and chips were. They had been forgotten and 7 mins later he received his Fish and chips The service from the x 2 young staff was excellent, they were polite and apologetic. When the table was cleared of glassware one of the ladies glass of wine was taken away by the head manager without asking if she had finished. Again it took a young man to resolve the matter. Sadly there has been a shift in the overall dining experience at Alchemy for all of us because of the disrespectful and rude attitude of the floor manager. We have always spoken highly of Alchemy, but 6 of us are not feeling it this...

Unfortunately we had a very questionable experience here which is very disappointing. I really don’t like giving bad reviews but we didn’t feel the service was respectful or professional. We had a group of 10 people (we were not in a rush, and would have happily waited 30mins-1hr for a drink, because we knew big groups can be intimidating) for a birthday pub crawl, and were refused to have our drinks mixed that we asked for ( we were not allowed to order what we all wanted individually, because of the number of people in our group - so we all had to order the same thing, that was the easiest for the bartender to make) none of us wanted this drink but accepted it to keep the flow of business. We would have happily gone elsewhere, if you refused business but they didn’t, and still gained over $220 from us. However, I can guarantee if 10 separate patrons came in, you would have happily make whatever they wanted. Following on, we were incorrectly charged - which is okay, mistakes happen but, this is $40 of extra money we happily paid because we were told to. We did receive a refund after I brought it up to one of the ladies, but I shouldn’t have had to do that. The people were lovely, this experience just really didn’t make me want...

The dishes we ordered had some nice flavours but we wished overall that there was more of it or the flavours were stronger. The salmon dish was delicious and cooked well with the tasty side of the minted peas. Pumpkin bites were also delicious. The Asian dishes weren't done very well though 🫠 the pho is not pho. The soup base, noodles used and the rest of the ingredients are completely different. Pho uses some medium sized rice noodles that are flat whereas here vermicelli was used instead and there's no bok choy or enoki mushrooms in pho. If anything it's more chinese. Spring onions, onions and cilantro should be used and traditionally, beef is more commonly used. More accurate to just call it an Asian noodle soup. And the Thai noodle salad was very bland and dry. There's no sauce which is what makes or breaks the salad and it should be sweet, savoury, spicy and sour but it was a bunch of thin dry rice noodles and chopped up veg thrown together. I think it's important to cover the basics of Asian flavours before calling it what it's supposed to be 🫠 a good attempt but not even close. Service was outstanding though,...