Amstel Club — Restaurant in Melbourne

Amstall has become our new favorite place to go for a dinner out. We typically go on a Friday or Saturday night. Food has always been exceptional. However a recent dinner on a Sunday evening left us very dissatisfied. I ordered a new item on the menu, chicken cor don Bleu with seasoned roasted potatoes and cooked vegetables. The dish arrived on the table minus any potatoes. I pointed this out to the waitress who apologized and returned with a side dish of boiled potatoes. No butter, no seasoning, just 2 tiny unappealing plain old boiled potatoes and certainly not what the menu stated which was seasoned roasted potatoes. I then started in on the vegetables. I enjoy slightly undercooked vegetable that still have some crunch to them because there's nothing worse than soggy overcooked soft vegetables, but these vegetables were barely cooked and barely warm. It actually took effort and strength to bite through them and cutting them with a knife was even more difficult. Then the chicken... It looked good, was decent sized but when I bit into the crumbed chicken, the underneath of the crumbs were raw. I cut the chicken open and peeled the crumbed section off the chicken and found it to be pasty. I could actually spread it (like butter) with my knife. Needles to say I couldn't eat it. I pushed the plate to the side and waited for a waitress to come by. After quite a wait, I was finally able to point this out to the waitress who started to offer to have it recooked, however I told her not to bother as I had lost my appetite. She did apologize and said she would inform the chef. We sat there for about another 15 mins to see if she would come back to update us, but nothing. No apology for the meal, no offer of a discount, or a vouchure for a future meal, nothing... So I spent $33 for two bites of undercooked chicken with a pasty crumb, a few mouthful attempts on vegetables that could break a tooth, and boiled plain unappealing potatoes. I won't go into the issues my partner had with his meal as this post is long enough. So my review is they're usually great, just not on a Sunday night it seems, and it was sad that other than informing the chef, nothing was actually done to attempt to satisfy the customer. An expensive and disappointing meal. (The 2 meals together cost $68 and 2...

It's a little unfair to rank a place 'average' when I've only visited once, but i have to judge based on my experience. The first thing that you're greeted with is a non-member sign in. Whilst i appreciate it is a members club, it puts you on the back foot immediately... basically felt like they were screening you. The dining area is very open and very comfortable. There is plenty of space to move through the other diners. The second thing that i found strange was the lack of table service for drinks. The waiter informed us that they will take our order for food, but we need to order drinks at the bar. Again, this felt strange considering the size of the restaurant. It was like being at a footy club rather than a restaurant. When the food was brought to us, the presentation was really impressive. I looked at the other plates and thought, "I should have ordered that." That isn't to say my plate wasn't appetising. In fact, i felt my plate looked the best, but each plate looked very inviting. Unfortunately, my Chicken Camembert Supreme wasn't that appealing. The chicken was rather dry, and i found it difficult to taste any of the Camembert or dried tomato from the overpowering flavour of the spinach. That being said, the broccolini was perfectly cooked, and the potatoes were on point. The third thing i found a little disconcerting was the over eagerness of the waiters to clear our plates. I know there's a fine line between waiting too long and being too quick, but in this instance, it felt like we were being rushed. I'm sure that wasn't the case, but that's how i felt. Overall, the pricing of the meal was acceptable, but there wasn't that feeling of 'bang for your bucks'. If i were to attend this venue again, i would try a different meal and reassess my rating, but there wasn't anything that would draw me back a second time unfortunately. So much potential, but the execution wasn't...

Came in for dinner, a group of four. Terrible customer service from the start, waitress that seated us was super unfriendly. Two members of the group went to get drinks, meanwhile a couple seated near us that came in after us were asked if they were ready to order. When everyone at our table was seated, the other couple were asked again if they were ready. We were there first and hadn’t been approached once, whilst they were approached twice. We eventually had to call someone over to order, and the waitress kept getting confused with the order which happens, but did not repeat it before walking off, usually wouldn’t be an issue except she got a one of the meals wrong. Two meals came 5 minutes after the first set of meals. No one came over to see how everything was going, so again had to flag someone down to have the meal replaced, and the waiter was the only friendly person the entire night. Someone came to clear our glasses, did not ask how everything was going and went to another table and asked them? What was so wrong with us that we get subpar service? When our dishes were cleared we asked the waitress for a takeout container, and she came back after taking the dishes and cleaned multiple tables before going back to get the container. When we went to pay, the bartender was rude and not once asked how everything went, so never got an opportunity to express how horrible our customer service was. Oh and also, understable needing to check the cocktail menu when double check was ingredients go in which drink, but the fruit tingle clearly states raspberry in it, and there was none. Wouldn’t be an issue, had she not checked what actually goes in it, and still getting it wrong. With two of us coming for a background of 5+ years of hospitality service, we were extremely unimpressed. Doubt...