Cellar Door at Balgownie Estate — Restaurant in Melbourne

Worst experience and service I have ever had. If giving no star was an option, I would give them no star.

We had booked for 13 people and had 2 calls yesterday to confirm that we would be in the private room for my mum's birthday. Arrived, and they had already seated another group in there. We were so disappointed by this as they had promised us the room. The managers were rude and unprofessional. Their excuse was that no one is ever promised the private room - please, I know exactly what was said to me on the phone, sort out your managing department. Another excuse was that the other group had already paid for the private room. This was clearly a conflicting excuse because another reason they gave was that we had reduced out booking to 13 instead of 19. My question is, how did they confirm the private room for us up until the day when another party had already paid for it? This is the answer - management deals with issues with a load of lies and concocted bullshit. To make it worse, the table in the private room only had 14 people anyway.

Further, we had chosen a set menu for mum's birthday and it turned out that they stuffed the entrees up. I mean, how hard is it to get down 3 entrees and write it on a piece of paper? Clearly hard for this bunch.

I was most disappointed with the managers' demeanour and way of handling the situation. They offered no alternatives for the table arrangement - they basically inferred that we had to sit where we were placed. They weren't apologetic at all and offered nothing to sweeten the deal. Their arrogance and pompous attitude did not help either. If i was a manager, I would at least offer free drinks for the table who had been so deeply disappointed.

All in all, the 1 star goes to the waiters who were actually decent and quite nice. The food was average. There is much better food in Melbourne. This experience was appalling, the management team is incompetent and I would never recommend anyone to go there. I would suggest that the management team get some...

My wife and I chose to dine here for Valentine's Day 2016 and to say we were disappointed is an under statement.

We were seated by the man at the front desk (later indentified as the "food and beverage manager") who sat us Next to the fireplace. That was where the service ended.

My wife and I were left seated there for approximately 20 minutes before I had to personally flag down a waitress to take our order as "the lady assigned to us wasn't around" I was happy to let that slide for the time being.

We then observed couples who arrived quite a while after us being served bread rolls and further appetisers before their entrees arrived, we were not provided the same courtesy. We were served our appetisers after our entrees were served to us. Not acceptable for $95 a head not including drinks.

After finishing our entrees we waited a further 20 minutes with empty plates sitting on our tables before anyone came along and cleared out table. We sat waiting with an empty bottle of water on our table before again I had to flag down a waitress to refill our water. There was no quality of service whatsoever.

After we left and paid for our meal in full I requested to speak with the manager who agreed from the report he'd received that we had experienced a "shocker" of an experience which was nice to be acknowledged however the damage had been done our dinner was ruined and there was no offer to refund money in any amount. We got the impression that to be honest it fell on deaf ears.

My wife and I will never done here again and I could not possibly recommend this restaurant to anyone in the future based on our experience. We hated it. DO NOT GO...

Not a fine dining experience. One star for service. Service was terrible. After we were seated, the server ran off. Another one came by a few minutes later assuming the first one explained specials they had (such as what is today’s fish of the day, etc.). My husband asked a question on the menu, and before he got a chance to ask another question, the server just walked off. We had to fetch another server to get to ask another question and get the answer before we ordered. The food arrived out of order. I think they forgot to serve bread before the appetizers, so they randomly brought it out mid meal. When our main courses arrived, they were served to the people at the table next to us (they already finished their meal). When those people told the server they were already done with their meal, the server picked up the plates and moved them to our table. Aside from that, in a fine dining experience, you do not need to remind the servers who ordered what (i.e. which dish was ordered by which individual at your table), as waiters either memorize this or have a way to keep track of this. Water glasses remained empty for a very long time. Servers are roaming around totally ignoring you. Even to settle the bill, you will have to wait for a very very long time.

The food was under-seasoned. There is salt and pepper on each table to help with seasoning. Again, in a fine dining experience, you do not need to keep salt and pepper on a table for your guests, as food is perfect as is when it comes...