Hemingway's Wine Room — Restaurant in Melbourne

Okay now I wish I took pictures to do this place justice. They have amazing team running the show here, didn't get all the names but you can tell that they genuinely take pride in providing a genuinely enjoyable food and wine experience. Down to earth, great food with subtle artistry and... amazing signature cocktails! To open, house made nori butter with fluffy buns. The front of house recommended the tortellini with corn chowder for the entree and we also had the rabbit terrine. The tortellini totally punched above its weight, pillow explosions of goodness and the silky smooth chowder was a perfect way to start. The rabbit terrine was beautiful as well! And then the spice racket, with meaty mezcal, house made vermouth, a signature drink with hickory and cinnamon smoke crafted by alcohol wizard Alex behind the bar. Our mains were exquisite! The duck was perfect. Meaty mouthfuls of tenderly cooked duck, lean yet bursting with flavour, and brilliantly paired with seared bak choy accents. The cod was served with the black olive crumb highlighting the salty seafood goodness and the capsicum coulis as a delightful sweet smoky counterpount. The rosti was also on point. Perfectly crisp on the top bottom and sides and when you bite into it you are rewarded with the still-present texture of the potato strips. I could go on to wax lyrical about the other cocktails on (and off!) the menu and how they are perfectly balanced, nuanced and complex - which is testament to Alex's artisan bartender skills. I'll leave it up to your imagination for now and am convinced that the reality will not disappoint. And then the cheese trolley...with some gems like cheese with barolo grape must pressed into the rind. A giant thank you to Julia who was our waitress for the night. She made our experience tonight a delight and was so incredibly friendly, and made excellent recommendations. An overall wonderful way to recover from the...

We went to the the restaurant a week ago and I was extremely disappointed. The staff knew nothing about the menu, and I was almost charged about $499 because they mixed up my table with another customer’s, and I nearly had a stroke when I saw the amount on the EFPOS machine (my bill was only about $200, but the waitress did not apologise when I corrected this serious mistake). At any rate, I felt cheated. No atmosphere and the restaurant was almost completely dead on a Saturday night (this was a huge red flag that I regrettably overlooked). One waitress was working behind bar, and waiting both the restaurant and the wine bar. Drinks took more than 30-minutes to arrive. The food was average at best. Reviews and pictures are misleading as these appear to be from before the restaurant was sold (I gather from around Oct 2022). I noticed in retrospect that the “nice photos” and glowing reviews are most from before the restaurant the sold. Sadly, this restaurant seems to have really lost its way. My partner was served a steak with a teaspoon of gravy and what appeared to be frozen chips. The $33 cheese platter was literally three small wedges of average cheese, which waiter did not explain nor was able to identify. I rarely post reviews, but I’m so upset because I paid a high price for pub...

We attended for a birthday, for the 3course long boozy lunch. This was a let down unfortunately, for a few reasons.

The wine selection isn't great, no sparking, champagne or rosè. They had scribbled out with a pen, all of the wine not available. (Print a new menu)

Entrees were quite nice although they took more than a hour to arrive. (Noting only 1 other table of 2 in the venue). Mains - 8/9 were overcooked- my duck especially was so dry I couldn't eat it. Dessert - The Brulee was nice.

Due to the food taking so long to come out, they ended the drinks package before we had recieved all of our courses. We were told we could pay for extra wine while we waited for our last course.

Overall, a let down, staff were nice but slow for service, no atmosphere in the place. There is definitely potentially but lots of...