Golden Fleece Hotel — Restaurant in Melbourne

Beautiful venue, but everything else was an utter disappointment!

We had pre-booked a bottomless brunch through Eventbrite for the “Santorini Soirée” event on Saturday 12th November at 3pm with our family (party of eight.) We all arrived at least 20 mins early as outlined on the tickets (We were four separate couples that booked all together, however arrived separately.) When my husband and I arrived, we were “greeted” (and I use that term quite loosely) by the wait staff at the door. I asked where we needed to be for the “Bottomless Brunch” and she had no idea what I was referring to, so sent us upstairs. We found the rest of our party, and purchased a few cocktails while we waited for our 3pm “event” start time. With the eight of us seated in a booth upstairs- just after 3pm, we received a piece of saganaki each, an oyster each and two bowls of fries with aioli (BETWEEN 8 PEOPLE!) Expecting more food to come out, nothing else did!!! ”Graze on a Mediterranean inspired canapé spread for 1.5 hours” AS QUOTED DIRECTLY FROM EVENTBRITE. 8 pieces of saganaki, 8 oysters and two bowls of chips is no where near a canapé spread! AND at $60 per person, this was appalling. At 3:40pm, a waitress advised us that we had to move as the area was reserved for another booking- “and THE people who have booked have put down $1,000 for this area” which were her direct words to our party!! Surprisingly though, this venue advertises on the website that bookings upstairs are not required- and furthermore- we had a booking for an hour and a half bottomless brunch- not a 45 minute one! The waitress was not impressed when I questioned her on this, and immediately went to get her manager. Dan came over and requested we move, and offered us a high bar table as there were no other spaces available to accommodate a party of our size. As one of our family members has a disability, the high bar table was not suitable, however Dan came back with a “chair” for the high table that assumed would accommodate, however we were left feeling quite frustrated and disappointed by the lack of empathy from this “manager” to accommodate her needs- especially, when we were all quite comfortable in the booth previously- without any need to highlight any additional requirement.

Finally, we were moved to a booth outside once another party had left- and Dan offered a round of drinks as compensation- (at a “bottomless brunch” which included drinks that we had already paid for anyway!)

We ended up leaving before our hour and a half sitting, and as we left found the manager out sitting at a table in front of the venue- either with with his mates or the staff- couldn’t really tell- but wasn’t really surprised with how little hospitality and woeful customer service came from this venue.

The Golden Fleece Hotel gets one star for false advertising a prepaid event, false advertising in their website, terrible customer service, and awful treatment of a person with a disability.

There is no excuse for how poorly this venue treated us today- if it was one complaint or one error, I would certainly not be writing this review- nor if it was one error rectified and handled appropriately, however this place was error after error, and something is systematically wrong with the staff, management and the...

Really disappointing. The refurbished building is absolutely breathtaking, they have done an incredible job at making you feel as if you are in Santorini. Unfortunately, the food and service does not match this standard. When we arrived we were told that we would be seated downstairs as the top floor (where all the photos of the Greek-like architecture are taken) is for drinks only. This is not published anywhere, and had I known I would have booked a later dinner to allow time for drinks upstairs first. The menu itself was the biggest disappointment. The QR code menu featured only a handful of the dishes from the menu online. The amount of food on offer was so little that I thought there must be some error with the virtual menu. When I enquired about this, I was told it was due to COVID and limited staff. Whilst that explanation is totally understandable, I cannot fathom why we were not informed about this significantly limited menu. To explain the extent of the limitations, only two mains were offered (but for the pizza) - a steak and a parmigiana. None of the pasta dishes were available, and the sharing and entree dishes we’d equally as limited. This would have been manageable had the food been good, but sadly it just wasn’t. We ordered the meatball dish from the sharing section of the menu, which was $19. It had three meatballs, which were rubbery and cold in the middle - clearly frozen and reheated. The pizza itself was nice, but far too small for $27 (4 slices). I would have appreciated being told about this reduced menu before I arrived, as I likely would’ve rescheduled to come back once the full menu was on offer. Sadly now, even with the incredible design, I will likely not return....

I booked a table for eleven people here on valentines day after seeing this place pop up constantly on Instagram. My friends and I were so excited but were unfortunately let down. We arrived for our 8pm reservation and were told we would be seated in 5 minutes as there was a delay, but ended up being seated at 8.30pm. They could have at least warned us instead of claiming we would be seated much quicker. While we were waiting we thought we'd go to the back and take some photos, and ended up getting scolded rudely by a supervisor (I assume), for not wearing masks, even though the waiters and waitresses weren't wearing theirs when they took our orders. I understand the mask rules but there is no reason to be rude about it, but this guy was obviously just having a power trip. We were seated in a tiny booth right next to the kitchen/dish washer and could hear the chef shouting and the kitchen hand spraying dirty plates. When all my friends arrived there was about eight of us at first and could barely fit in the booth, so I don't know how they expected to fit eleven people in there. I was expecting a large table not a squishy booth. The food was average, definitely had better elsewhere, they also burned some of our pizzas. Some feedback for the waiters outfits - it looks very odd having everyone dress in their own clothing. None of it gave off that Greece, beach, island type vibe. It would've been nice if they had a simple uniform in linen material with white or neutral colours so everyone looked cohesive with the vibe of the hotel. Also would be great if you guys played some music downstairs as the music was almost silent so it didn't really add to...