Grosvenor Hotel — Restaurant in Melbourne

Summary: 4.6. We had a superb time here. The bistro is terrific, the new menu great and the food fabulous. The dishes are well presented using excellent produce that is skillfully cooked. It’s a good wine list as well.

Review: This is a large multi faceted venue on Brighton Rd. It offers a lot of options - pub, bistro, restaurant, bottle shop, burgers, etc. There’s heaps going on and it works. I know the immediate area well and this is a great dining option and well worth travelling to. We went for lunch today in the bistro out the back. The area is lovely and light even on a sultry grey day like today just before the heavens opened. u

We started with pre lunch drinks. I had a Negroni and my partner an Aperol spritz. Both were excellent. They were well made and up there with the best.

We started our meal with the tasting plate. This is a gorgeous offering. Just a beautiful selection of antipasto which we loved. First, you get fantastic plain wood fired pizza topped with rosemary. While this is delicious on its own the plate includes mortadella, prosciutto, two types of salami, caperberries, a selection of small olives, cornichons, aged parmigiana reggio and mozzarella. Every one of these components was absolutely as fresh as a daisy and thrillingly flavoursome. The dish reminded us of similar dishes we’d had in Italy. The one here at the Grosvenor compares excellently. To us it was best practice. It’s everything a charcuterie board should be.

I had the lamb shoulder for main. This too is a wonderful dish. The lamb is beautiful, moist and succulent. There are excellent greens with this dish as well. The char grilled broccolini is particularly arresting. It’s a super dish for sure. The world’s most beautiful woman had the pork belly. This was exactly as described. Absolutely delicious and tender. The crackling was nothing short of magnificent. We chose one accompanying side dish. Roasted cauliflower with ancient grains and almonds. This too was great. Both mains and the salad were attractive and a very good size.

We were a little taken aback at the high quality of the food at the Grosvenor despite the previous laudatory reviews we’d seen. This is seriously beautiful food they offer here. Excellent produce, superbly cooked and presented with outstanding flavours and textures. They are good sized meals too as mentioned and represent very good value for money. Add a very good wine list - I had a glass of Malbec and my partner a local Pinot Gris - and you’ve got a terrific place.

We couldn’t fit dessert in sadly. We’ll rectify that on our next visit. We thoroughly enjoyed our meal here and would return anytime.

Our sincere thanks to the venue for the kind invitation...

We visited on a Tuesday night to take advantage of the Tuesday $25 steak deal. Interestingly, there was no sign or mention of this special. If you didn't know about it beforehand, it wasn't offered to you at all. I suggest you look ahead to see which specials they have on, for example Thursday nights are $15 pizza nights. The three of us ordered our steaks, two medium rare and one medium. They come with a side salad and chips, and a small jug of pepper sauce. Although there are a number of sauces available on the menu, for the steak special you are limited to pepper sauce only. Fair enough but to be honest it wasn't a great pepper sauce. I don't often order pepper sauce (I far prefer mushroom or garlic sauce) but this one was quite harsh, and tasted more like white pepper than black or green peppercorn. It failed the chip-dip test (how does it taste on a chip dipped into it). It just really wasn't a great pepper sauce. The salad was ok but I found mine to be a bit gritty, like it hadn't been washed properly. It was generously dressed with a vinegarette, maybe even a little too generously. The steaks were well cooked. Mine looked slightly past medium rare but it was as soft as butter and delicious so I didn't mind at all. My wife complained that hers was very salty. She doesn't like a lot of salt so I tasted it to check and it was quite over seasoned. Even I thought it was a touch too salty, and I add salt to just about everything I eat. Overall it was a pleasant meal but let down by a few small, easy-to-fix issues. It probably deserves 3.5 stars but Google doesn't do...

I sadly have to post another review. After I left this review. I recently had a further disappointing experience at this establishment. After experiencing this, the staff member, Lorraine, behave further inappropriately towards me again since I mention it to a colleague, I was informed by Lorraine that I am no longer welcome back. I found this response to my feedback quite upsetting. My intention was simply to share my observation with another staff member. It's concerning to feel penalised for providing feedback, especially when my interactions have always been based on compassion and empathy. While I understand that everyone can have a bad day, it was disheartening to be told I'm not welcome back as a result of this situation. I hope that in the future, customers who offer feedback to staff can do so without fear of being banned or be told that I am not welcome back. For my own record, I want to be transparent about what occurred. The situation escalated after I simply asked Lorraine, 'Do you want anything?' which was apparently perceived negatively. It's also worth noting that if the roles were reversed, and a male staff member had behaved towards a female customer in a similar way, I believe the response would likely be very different, with protection offered to the woman. This apparent double standard is...