Asado — Restaurant in Melbourne

The restaurant has a very nice facade with the big bold writing and is situated on a corner with lovely views of the outside area where you can watch the world passing by. We asked for a table against the room divider in the window side but were ignored and given a table basically within 900mm of the kitchen serving counter and secondary staff work table. The comfortable chair on the one side of the table made up for sitting basically in the bowls of the working area. Our waiter was pleasant and recommended the $95 set menu but we went with our own choices. Starter (suppose to be large and shareable) Tabla De Curados at $26 which was perhaps 5 thin slices of cured meat and a tiny amount of pickles foods and 4 tiny little flatbread triangles. The meat was nicely cured and flavoursome and although underwhelming we thought as a starter we were off to a good start. The wine at $109 a Malbec was flat on the pallet with earthy notes but no fruitiness whatsoever present. It was as if the wine saw to much heat in transport at some point. Who knows. A Yalumba Y series at $16 would have been a better choice. We were shocked by the bland presentation of the main meals. Yhe broccolini was presented well but the rest was served as if by a teenager with no cooking experience. Meat in a bowl - just meat and a bowl. At least the potatoes in a bowl had some cream as a bit of garnish. But still looked like it is was from the RSL. The taste was the biggest suprise. The Conchillo $43 was mostly fat but tasted great with the meat being tender and tasty. Enough for a starter but not a small main. The Tira de Asado $43 was terrible. Chewy overcooked and with enough salt to cure a whole bison. It was dead. It was deadly well done. Seriously a forequarter chop done on a 2BTU Bunnings BBQ with Maggie Beer spice from Woolies or MSG from Uncle Roger would have been better. The Brocollini although presented well was served on a cold plate and was cold so spoiled the potential flavours. The Brocollini tasted fine and was al dente as expected. The potatoes however were horrible little randomly rough cut as you would if you had no shape in mind. The flavour would have been great if it wasn't for the pot of salt that was dumped into it. We told the waiter it was basically not edible since we barely touched it. We ate most of the pork 1 piece each of the beef. A spoonful of the potatoes and half the Brocollini. It didn't seem to register. He explained all our concerns away by saying yes that is the way the Argentinians/Spanish do things. Well in brief this is not for us then. 😕 Good luck guys. I will take $267 and tip to find better value...

Great food let down by poor service!

We were really looking forward to trying Asado tonight and booked a table pre-booking the set menu.

When we arrived, we decided to order cocktails before having in mind to order a bottle of wine with the majority of the set menu.

Our server was polite and friendly and took our order of two cocktails. We then waited for these cocktails for about 30 minutes. It was not until we were on course 3 of our set menu for our server to come and mention about our drinks. (Another server had brought over our starter course)

Our cocktails eventually arrived, over 30 mins late by this point, and our server told us that the manager had said they wouldn’t be on our bill. This made us feel better about the situation but still pretty annoyed that we had got about 30% into our set menu with only two glasses of water each. Not a premium dining experience.

The food continued to be excellent, however there was a bit of a long wait between courses. This was especially notable between the steak and dessert course. While we appreciate that there should be a wait between main course and dessert, we ended up sitting with empty steak plates for about 15 minutes before anyone came to clear our table and ask if we were ready for the next course. Attentive service was not on display, which could perhaps be more understandable on a busy Saturday night but this was a Thursday evening with about 50% occupancy.

We could probably have forgotten about the cocktail issue since the food really was good, however we were very disappointed to receive the bill and find the cocktails still listed as charged items. We brought this up with our server who apologised and had them removed. I really felt let down by this as I don’t think it should have been our responsibility at this point to ensure they were taken off the bill. It also puts us in the awkward position of having to ask for them to be taken off.

In conclusion, although we really enjoyed the food and found it to be high quality, the service blunders would make me hesitate to recommend Asado to friends or family visiting Melbourne, which is...

We arrived for a quick dinner before a show on a busy Friday evening. We've had the bottomless lunch here with friends before, which was a great experience but this time we were ordering from the menu. We were seated quickly, even if we didn't have a booking. Our server and the kitchen were incredibly accommodating and pushed out amazing food in such a short time for us to enjoy! Just like last time, we had a wonderful meal, and service was again faultless.

We started with some tapas; the lengua was melt-in-your-mouth, charred goodness. The pumpkin empanada filling was very tasty and the pastry was delicious. From experience on our last bottomless lunch, their vegetable dishes are a cut above the rest despite specialising in meat. I would have ordered more if we weren't short on time and significantly less hungry! Next up was the boquerones, which was not the expected slab of bread with fish, but was instead small crisps and fish on a bed of sauce. It was a very light dish. We were a bit disappointed on the quantity and presentation but in terms of taste, it still delivered on satisfying acidity and drumming up our appetites. The papas were the best we've had in and outside the city, the potatoes were nice and crispy in places, soft and warm in others. It went really well with the cordero, 350g of very well-cooked lamb in a tasty sauce. We couldn't get enough of the chimichurri and salsa that went with it. For drinks, we enjoyed their sangria, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic, which was refreshing and enjoyable.

Once again, we were delighted by the decor, and the view of the kitchen stretching to the bar. The restaurant is spacious, with rich dark colours that reflect their equally rich, meaty menu. Toilets are well-appointed, with separate, solid room-like cubicles.

This place gets busy on a Friday night but servers were attentive when flagged and accommodated our every need. We were very impressed! This is up there as one of our favourite restaurants in Melbourne for excellent food, ambiance, and service, and we will be back again for more special nights...