Pier Farm — Restaurant in Melbourne

4.5. This is one of those ones where you curse the loss of the half mark option. 4.5 would have completely nailed, but 5 is maybe that bit too high but 4 way too low.

Pier Farm is extremely good taking all key indicators into account. The location and space are terrific. The food and wine are almost uniformly excellent. The service is good too. It’s very close to a perfect restaurant and well worth travelling across town to as we did as part of restaurant week.

Some detail. The restaurant is nicely located on Port Phillip bay. It has excellent inside and outside spaces. The whole place has a good feel and is well fitted out. There is a tremendous view outside of the bay including the shipping channel leading into the port, the adjoining marina and various local seabirds. It’s enormously restful and even entertaining. We saw lots including huge ships and pleasure craft. Even a pair of black swans swam by at one point. Inside and out this is a very well appointed place. The food is extremely good. The restaurant had chosen a very good menu for this dinner and they delivered it very well. The canapés were excellent. Three types in all. The best was chargrilled prawn on skewers. The prawn meat was perfectly cooked and was delicious. The paired wine, a Pizzini Prosecco, was a wonderful accompaniment. The entree was mighty good too. Stuffed calamari with a tomato sauce. The calamari ripieni was good and the sauce really flavoursome. The stuffing was the hero. Delicate and subtly flavoured it was a real winner. Again, the wine pairing, a Paringa Estate Pinot Grigio, was really outstanding. This is a beautiful wine and it went so wonderfully with this dish.

Main course was a beauty too. Snapper fillet, asparagus, clams and mussel butter. It came with a lovely salad with a gorgeous zingy dressing. This was matched with a Medhurst Rose, another outstanding choice. The meal was very good. The food wine combination worked superbly again.

Desert was an absolute triumph. It floored our group of four. I cannot ever recall a better cheesecake than this, a lemon and vanilla bean number. Cheesecake rarely excites me. It’s usually too heavy and the crust too dense in my experience. This cheesecake though was utterly faultless. The cake itself had a beautiful soft creamy texture - it was the opposite of dense - and it was subtly and thrillingly flavoured. The gorgeously flavoured strawberries added to the overall beauty of the dish. The thin base was excellent too. This dish was a 10/10, particularly when served with another great wine, the Yering Station Cane Cut Viognier.

There was so much to love about this food and wine. It was close to the perfect menu. The produce was great. It was treated with very considerable respect. The overall beauty of the food came from the restraint in its composition and presentation. Every dish looked good. Every dish had very good flavours that delighted with their subtlty and never overreached. In addition, they don’t just really know their food here, they also really know their wines. That was evident from the wine pairings. A quick look at the stored wine around the restaurant showed any number of beautiful and carefully chosen wines, including a number of obscure ones.

Service was generally good throughout the night particularly from some of the younger servers. It wasn’t faultless though. A response of “...treat it like a degustation”, isn’t the right response to someone seeking a wine top up. There were several coordination issues too, such as wine being served too far before dishes arrived. These were small issues overall though given the quality of food and wine on offer.

This is a very very good restaurant. A jewel even. It’s an easy 4.5 out of 5 for me. We had a great night. I recommend Pier Farm highly and would happily...

Live down the road but tonight was the first time dining at pier farm. With some of the waterfront restaurants in Williamstown like Sebastian’s or Pelicans your view of the waterfront is really dependent on where you are seated but no matter where you are seated here you get a view of the water. The large windows that rap around the building with bay seating along with the white walls, greenery hanging from the ceilings and gorgeous soft furnishings give you a beautiful interior. My partner and his mother both love to dine near the water and they were both blown away with how beautiful it was.

As soon as you are seated you are given the choice of sparkling or still water and are given some beautiful crusty warm bread with specially sourced butter (very tasty). There was a good selection of wine, beer and cocktails and the staff made sure that as soon as your glass was empty they came to offer you another drink.

The staff were all attentive and you can see they pride themselves on providing top notch service. The star for me was George who I believe was in charge of the front of house. You could see him keeping an eye on everything and took service to a fine dining level. The way he described each of the nights specials to us was amazing and it made you want to order everything. He was able to tell you where the produce was sourced and how each component of the dish is prepared. I have been to Michelin star restaurants where staff were not on his level. To top it off he was very witty and hand us all laughing. The service and setting definitely 5 ⭐️.

Now the food....all the produce that is used is definitely top quality and you can tell it’s important for Pier Farm to source the best produce. I had the oysters natural with lemon granita. These were by far the best oysters I have ever had both in quality and how the icy granita with lemon and salt were perfectly balanced. I ordered 1/2 a dozen but could have had 2 dozen happily it was that good. My partner had 1 of the specials a blue eye fillet w/ asparagus and vegetables. My partner enjoyed it but said that the veges and asparagus were over cooked. His mother had another special which was a whole grilled salmon w/ grapes and radish. She said the fish was nicely cooked but she was expecting more. We also had a garden salad and fries as sides that were fine. For dessert I had the panacotta that was beautiful. It was served with fresh strawberries, crunchy meringue and some small squares off jelly. The combo of the sweet milky panacotta was perfect with the crunch of the meringue and tartness of the jelly and strawberries.

If I was to rate Pier Farm based off just what I had where everything I had was fantastic and without fault it would be 5 ⭐️. The food my partner and his mother had was nice other than my partners veges being over cooked but I think that unfortunately the food on the plate did not live up to their expectations. The way the meals were cooked did not exactly live up to how George described them.

The meal was quite expensive but even though some of the meals were just good and nothing great we still really loved our dining experience at Pier Farm. We will definitely be back. My only real advise to make this reach that 5 star level would be to make sure the food served is at the same level as George describes it.

I asked my partner what he would rate it and he said 3 stars based on his meal and 5 based on service and everything else. My rating would be 5 star so have come to 4 stars based on this. Definitely somewhere to go if you have a special occasion or want a romantic dinner. We will be back but I will be very sad if George is not there. Pier Farm need to...

WARNING: Incredibly rude, ABUSIVE, bullying and aggressive manager / owner. PLEASE RECONSIDER DINING HERE.

Let me preface with a positive - the location and atmosphere is very nice with great views and the wait staff were lovely. I'm afraid it goes downhill VERY quickly from here.

There appears to be a culture of hiding the truth banking on customers not knowing what things will cost before they get their bill. The first example was the specials. When we enquired about the price of the seafood specials (which at some restaurants can be up to $100) the waiter had to go and check (she didn't tell us at the time, nor was it on the menu or specials board). She came back and told us, however she said that the owner specifically told the wait staff not to tell customers the price of specials. I also asked where the fish was from. The first waiter told me SA, the second waiter told me Vic. I'll never know.

Here comes the main issue though. At the bottom of the menu it states "a bank processing fee will be added for all card payments" with no amount specified (note to restaurant - legally you MUST specify the amount). I asked the waiter what the charge was and she went away and came back and confirmed it was 1.5% for all cards. Later when I went to pay, the card terminal told me it was going to add a higher amount than 1.5%. When I mentioned this I was simply told - no, the card terminal is right, what you were told was wrong (even though the waiter again confirmed to the cashier she had told me 1.5%). I remained polite and asked that I be charged the lower amount (i.e. the amount I was quoted before I ordered my meal). I was told this was not possible. I then politely suggested they could simply adjust the bill accordingly so as to match the quoted amount (remember they should have just printed the amount on the menu in the first place as is required by law). At this point - the owner seemed to appear from nowhere and started SCREAMING at me at the top of his lungs in front of the whole restaurant and screamed at my face: "HOW ABOUT YOU JUST F* OFF. YOU CAN GET THE F* OUT OF MY RESTAURANT NOW. PAY THE FULL AMOUNT AND GET THE F* OFF YOU F* * etc etc etc. The whole restaurant could hear and see this. I could not believe it. It was the worst experience of my life. If you think I'm making this up - please check some of the other 1 star google reviews and you'll see he's also been abusive and bulling to staff, not just customers. PLEASE DO NOT SUPPORT THIS RESTAURANT - THIS SORT OF BEHAVIOUR MUST BE STOPPED. Please vote with your feet and enjoy some of Willy's many other amazing waterfront restaurants. You've...