Rooftop at QT — Restaurant in Melbourne

This place has a great location and the view and ambience are sublime. However, the service of one particular staff member was especially poor and extremely disappointing.

Me and two friends stood at the bar (right next to each other, shoulder to shoulder) for what must have been 15-20 minutes waiting to be served. Service was slow but I'm always understanding - there were a lot of people waiting. We got to the front and the girl we were with ordered all the drinks on behalf of us. This young asian lad with a pony tail served us. He made the drinks in two batches and each friend took one batch back to the table and sat down, with me standing at the bar the entire time waiting to pay and order additional drinks.

I waited some time and the same person who served us went over to my friends who were sitting down asking for payment, only for them to point to me still standing at the bar waiting for the guy to let me pay. He comes over to me and starts chastising me immediately saying "Are you paying for the drinks? I just spent time running around the venue looking for your friends so they could pay for the drinks. They left without paying. This has caused everyone to have to wait even longer to get served at the bar." I apologised for the confusion and paid for everything immediately. I thought this would be the end of it as I had always intended to pay for the drinks (I never left the bar service area and cctv can corroborate that). It was also already busy well before we had arrived at the bar so to blame us for their slow service to begin with was a stretch and quite rude.

After paying for the tables drinks, I then politely asked him to make 3 additional drinks for me and paid for them upfront before they were made. He was looking annoyed at this point, and as he was making a cocktail, I overheard him talking to his coworker saying "they tried to leave the bar without paying" which is untrue and unreasonable. He gave me two of my drinks and I again apologised and told him that I was always at the bar and was fully intending to pay for all drinks for the table (and of course did exactly that). He said no worries and I thought this would be it. A fool I was. He gave me the last drink and then proceeded to give me attitude and say "I hope your table doesn't do something like that again tonight".

Mate, are you kidding me? What's with the attitude? That comment was completely unnecessary. From the beginning I was always reasonable and apologetic about the misunderstanding. I completely understand the pressure service people can be under, especially when it's busy, but this is not an excuse for that last comment. Mistakes happen but I don't need to be chastised again after I had already apologised and paid for everything. I'm not in primary school - I understood you loud and clear the first time, mate. I hope management take a long hard look at the service that particular staff member is providing and make adjustments where required. The experience left a sour taste in my mouth and honestly, there are way too many nice bars in Melbourne to go to any with subpar service. Save your time, or else you might also be accused of trying to take drinks without paying and then (after apologising) get scolded...

QT came highly recommended by our hotel staff, whom I will update re: our experience.

We arrived at 2 pm on a beautiful Saturday, hoping to enjoy a fun experience at a highly recommended rooftop bar. Rooftop bar brings to mind something with a fantastic view. Nope. View was limited and constricted. It wasn’t special. Also, outside seating is limited to a small area.

Service was extremely slow and the only positive is our server got our orders right. Our group of 5 (soon expanded to a group of 10, as we were waiting on others) sat in our booth for 15-20 minutes before thinking, “oh we’re dumb, we’re supposed to order for ourselves at the bar”. Nope, we were turned away, sent back to our booth and our server arrived amazingly quickly. And that’s the only thing she did. She took our orders and thank goodness we had the foresight to order food at the same time as our drinks, otherwise it would have been longer. Cocktail menu is fantastic and drinks are clever and well-balanced. The apps we had were interesting and delicious - fig & burrata, rosemary focaccia and fries - all to share with the table. After another 20 minutes our drinks arrived 2 at a time (I’m not blaming the bartenders, they worked as fast as they could). Our server periodically came to give us another carafe of water - nice - but we were never asked if we wanted more drinks or food or possibly dinner. She never promoted anything, made it interesting or engaged with us outside of taking our orders. Our group of 10 are all retirees. We were there to have some good drinks and enjoy each other and the atmosphere. Do you understand your bar tab could have been 2-3 x what it was? Instead, our server ignored us for most of the time unless we approached the bar to ask, or flagged her down. The bar wasn’t terribly busy - I will always give grace to servers who are working as hard as they can - but I won’t return or recommend QT to...

An amazing Sunday afternoon grazing through 6 dishes by 6 different top chefs under 30. MFWF 30 under 30 continued. We started with a tiny morsel which was a potato soufflé with a tiny piece of Comte in the middle with truffle delicately grated on top. As you popped it into your mouth it was gone and definitely needed a couple more to fully appreciate how good it really was. It also came with an equally tiny beetroot tart combined with mixed berries and also left you wanting more. To finish off this first course we were treated to a very surprising skewer of delicately flavored duck hearts. What a way to start ❣️the next course was a super delicious dish of Kingfish sashimi done in a really pleasant apple and buttermilk sauce. Surprisingly subtle and light and as a sashimi lover, totally appreciated. Mussels are not usually a first choice for me but the next course brought mussels foie gras and leek in a light sauce and covered by a delicious thin crepe. Surprisingly fabulous 😋 and after all of that they served absolutely divine roast chicken that was so good you wanted to keep eating it, and it came with a generous portion of superb pumpkin covered in a pumpkin, brown mustard and curry leaf sauce. Now that I’ve had time to digest it, would definitely want more. Believe it or not I realized that I still had room to try the dessert. A perfect light Myer Lemon posset which is a custard like consistency but set and served with a cinnamon covered crispy thin biscuit thing. The fact we could all still drool over it after all that food is a testament to how good it was. Not sure where or when you can try any of these dishes again as they were from 6 different chefs from 6 different restaurants and not usually on the menu so thrilled to have been able to enjoy and share...