Manningham Hotel & Club — Restaurant in Melbourne

Dissapointed Ten of us went for dinner to the Bistro to celebrate a friends 83rd Birthday yesterday. The night did not start well as there was no ramp at the main entrance for the Birthday girl to push her walker to the front door. On entry we were required to follow sign in process for entry to the Bistro. Was surprised as the Hallam Hotel and the Berwick Inn Hotel where both venues that have pokies as well and did not have sign in. My 83 year old friend found it quite a challenge to write her details in the book. On arrival at our table which was next to outdoor dinning entrance, we found the area quite warm and stuffy and requested for the air conditioning to be turned up but this never happened which made it uncomfortable for the rest of the night. The ordering and paying for our drinks and meals was done by two of our friends each ordering for five of us at the table. There were only two female staff at the bar close to our table who served our drinks and most of the meals for the dinner. The staff while being pleasant were not efficient in their service to our table forgetting the extra plates requested for us to share entre’s and not knowing what was served. We of us ordered 3 Friday special parma’s two of which were tandoori and one Sicilian. The male server had no idea which dishes were being brought by him to us and had to go back to the kitchen to find out. There were long delays between the main meals being served to the 10 of us with meals coming in dribs and drabs and my wife and I were the last to receive our meals nearly 30mts later by which time the first person’s pasta dish was completely eaten and others were almost done too. My meal had overcooked chicken, very little sauce in the parma, lacked flavour and to me the dish received was not as described in the menu. My wife’s Jerk chicken was dry and the harissa mayo was non existant. Also the avocado for the dish was green not ripe and could not be cut with the knife. We ordered Toblerone cheese cake with poached berries and vanilla ice cream for our desert. Again after a very long wait and several reminders the desert served was two pieces of “toblerone desert” with some whipped cream from a can on the side. Others at the table too did not find the meals good. For a Friday night it was very surprising to see the lack of staff and supervision of the operation of the Bistro. Overall was a disappointing night. Will not be back anytime soon. Rating 2 out of 5.

Thanks Kevin for your reply. As I have listed all the issues in my review, I don’t wish to call for further discussion on them. I’m hoping that the issues raised will be addressed by Management to improve the dining experience for future...

Very disappointed with Porche and Management at the Manningham Hotel for cancelling my daughter’s 30th birthday event with only three weeks to go. Barbara, the previous party planner left notes for Porche regarding our special event yet Porche was extremely incompetent with communicating with us or returning a dozen phone call messages that I had left with Manningham Hotel reception for her. Today when I called Porche she explained that there were no emails from us, no plans in place for a DJ, no confirmation of party colours etc and when I raised my voice in frustration telling her that emails had been sent on the 4th of April 2025 and we have not had one phone call back since .. (I was calling the Manningham Hotel non stop because the party was soon approaching and I had not heard from anyone) .. She put Management onto the phone and I explained to management that leaving us in a pickle for an 80 person event without a Dj and other party arrangements was disgraceful .. he proceeded to say that ‘we’ could not work on resolving this issue, therefore he was cancelling the event. I said that we had a contract and that he couldn’t cancel the event and he said ‘watch me’ then recited the contract clause which states that the venue can cancel a function at any time at their discretion. So he did. So here we are looking for another venue because of two unprofessional people that couldn’t even plan a birthday event for us. The $1000 deposit was refunded when they cancelled our party plans but the inconvenience they caused us was heartbreaking, especially for my daughter. What a disgraceful experience it has been this week trying to finalise our special event. Here we were thinking that a Deluxe Birthday Package was going to run smoothly whereas we ended up dealing with two incompetent, rude, unprofessional people that couldn’t even resolve our concerns and keep the original plans for June 2025. Not good enough ! If the phone calls had of been returned and if Porche had of looked in the party booking diary she would have realised that our birthday event was coming up and that she needed to call us, instead it was us continuously trying to call her. It got extremely frustrating for us not having peace of mind for a big event. This company failed in communicating and party planning and when I asked for a contact number to report the shocking cancellation of our party .. the coward of a venue manager hung up on me. What a pathetic act from a person that claims to be the Manager...

Went last Saturday night and left a little disappointed. Meals were OK, but customer service was sadly lacking. Was a regular prior to COVID and after lockdown it hasn’t quite been the same. Have been a few times now and this was by far the least enjoyable. No friendly greeting on arrival, just a ‘Do you have a booking’ and straight to the table, that’s it. Let me point out that the waiters weren’t rude but they lacked the interaction with customers like there has been in the past. Not one waiter who walked by during our meal, stopped to ask if everything was ok, and when we left, there was no one to farewell us e.g. ‘Goodnight, Hope to see you again soon, Thanks for coming’ etc, etc. The place wasn’t even busy. I get there are a lot of organisations that are having staffing issues, but happy customers generate more positive feedback and reviews for your restaurant. We used to get a complimentary bread roll or two, but that’s stopped and I’m pretty sure the menu is a little different as well. Steak looked like the size has been trimmed down a bit and the price has increased. It would also be nice if there was more than one piece of sad looking tomato on the side salad. The Tiramisu was more like some sort of chocolate sponge and it lacked the classic tastes of a proper Tiramisu. And the dollops of mock cream out of a can is not a good addition. In fairness there are meals to suit most tastes, but it is standard pub fare and nothing made me want to give a glowing review. Might try this place again in 6-12 months time to see if anything...