Strato Melbourne - Bar and Restaurant — Restaurant in Melbourne

The setting of this restaurant is absolutely breath taking, with panoramic views of Melbourne from the CBD to the Dandenong ranges to the Bay. Unfortunately that was the only good thing about this restaurant.

Given the opulence of the building I expected a fine dining experience. My partner and I had a 3 hour booking at 7 oclock. We were hoping to enjoy a romantic long dinner at the sun set to celebrate Christmas. Upon arriving I was initially impressed, our table was right bay the window as requested.

We decided to order the Chefs selection set menu for $125 a head. Not long after, the waiter brought out the first course. To our surprise the appetizers (4 oysters and artisan bread with orange infused butter) was brought out with the entrees (chicken liver pate with 4 bits of turkish bread and the 'ripened tomatos' dish). I was immediately confused for a number of reasons.

Firstly, if the customer has a 3 hour booking, why on earth would you rush their experience by bringing out 2 courses at once. It makes absolutely no sense. secondly, the food wasnt good at all. The oysters were okay, however it was obvious that there were 2 different sorts of oysters being served, 2 bigger ones and 2 very small ones.The Grilled artisean bread and butter was okay, 4 rather dense peices that were BARELY grilled). The chicken liver pate was not to my liking at all, we took one bite and neither of us could stomach it. Also it looked a bit odd with 2 bits of bread being served alongside it when we already had 2 peices each of dense artisean bread served. Clearly very little thought had been put into this.

The "ripened tomato dish" was not as described. It was a few bits of sliced heirloom tomato and a lot of cherry tomatoes, topped with roquette, in a bed of what tasted like TOMATO SAUCE. What the menu described as 'goats cheese' was white sauce that looked like it belonged on a burger. They were very stingy with the 'avocado' and infact it wasnt even real avocado but a couple of tiny dollops of what appeared to be avocado from a tube. I just dont understand why you would serve something like this, I was honestly amazed. Why not use fresh avocados? and why on earth wouldn't they use real goats cheese? And whats up with the tomato sauce? So confusing

The main course was the Fig glazed Chicken, Grass Fed Striploin with sides of Brcolini and Fries. The meat was well cooked but again we were confused and unimpressed. The steak was served cold while the chicken was warm. The fries were cheap frozen fries and were luke warm. We were served a generous side of crunchy Brocolini, and then more brocolini was served again with both mains. Looking at the menu I saw that the side was meant to be served was the Maple Roasted Carrots. Why did we get served extra brocolini instead? Again, no thought or care put into our meals.

The desert was above average and probably the highlight. We had the Dark Chocolate Mouse and the Creme Brulee. However I noticed that both deserts were garnished with 1 blueberry each CUT IN HALF, and 1 strawberry between the 2 deserts again CUT IN BITS. Why on earth does a restaurant like this need to be so measly? For $125 a head this is not up the the standard you would expect.

I would not return, the food is not up to standard for Melbourne and its really letting this place down. Strato could be something really special but it just dosnt deliver. Sadly, it dosnt feel like there is any love put into the food or thought put into the...

We went here for my Aunt's Birthday and I have booked a table for 5 People.

We arrived thinking that we will have a table ready for the "breath-taking" view. I was confident that we have a table because I have been corresponding with the team about adding another person on the day and whether it is possible, to which they have re-assured me that it is possible. To our surprise the staff said she can't see our booking and that she was not the one who answered my emails. We booked the guaranteed window seating in advanced and we waited for around 15 minutes only to be seated in the middle of the restaurant without the breath-taking and guaranteed window seating view, and all we can see is the industrial area. We then asked the person whether we can do a refund, to which she responded I do not know how to do the refund because I wasn't the one who processed it. We then asked if it is possible for the fee to be deducted from our bill, to which she said it was okay.

With the food, it was good but not to the extent of what we were expecting. You would expect that someone would ask for any dietaries as I have indicated that we have someone with severe anaphylactic reaction. Nonetheless, we ordered and waited for around half an hour before the food. We ordereded the risotto, chicken, lamb rump, snapper and the 500g wagyu rib eye steak. We asked for the steak to be medium rare but we got a medium well to well done. So we requested for another plate, and we were served with another steak with the same done-ness.

As I have noted that we were celebrating Aunt's birthday during the reservation, we were expecting that a birthday plate will be given. However, given that they cannot see our booking, we needed to go to the bar to ask for the manager to serve us with one. We waited again for half an hour, but we can see the cake waiting for it to be served for around 20 minutes.

I remembered a different Strato wayback. I enjoyed our time there with a lot of many good staff who would even explain to us the food during serving. It was really good wayback and some of my friends really enjoyed it, and we even booked for an event.

Unfortunately, I think with the recent experience and the reviews, we are no longer wanting...

I went to Strato restaurant with 5 friends and the views and lighting was amazing absolutely stunning views but the food and other sides of the experience was average if not below average.

We had pay extra to get a window seat and then got squeeze onto a table/booth that was definitely design for 4 but we squeeze 5 on. This is not a big deal but if we have to pay extra for a seat we want enough room where we aren’t sitting on top of each other.

The food: we arrived and went to order and from location and where we were the prices seems expensive but fair. But we went to order maybe 5 plates between us to share and then got told it was a 2 plate minimum meaning we had to order 10 plates, we ended up being able to talk it down to 8 plates but still seemed excessive.

We ordered from the starters scollops and bread, main meal tortellini and the roast chicken as well as roasted potato and chips and then further ordered 2 dessert. I didn’t get a chance to try the scollops to I have no opinion, bread was average but not much to comment on. The tortellini though was very small plate with 3 pieces of pasta and wasn’t hot, came out warm sauce lacked flavour and all needed seasoning. The roast chicken, chicken was delicious but everything else on the plate was cold and clearly had been sitting out for a while to cool down. The roasted potato’s were just covered in oil no crunch and not very much flavour just sitting in a pool of oil. Chips are chips not much to comment on. Finally we ordered dessert the ice cream I can’t remember its name and a brownie. The ice cream was clearly frozen then melted and refrozen again the ice cream itself was hard as a rock, and once we felt the bowl it was very very clear that the bowl and everything in it had been frozen as well. When the brownie came out we had to have a laugh it looked like a sponge when all the water was dried up…. Tiny. I honestly was most disappointed with this as even though the brownie was a very average tasting this the portion sizing was horrible to spend $26 dollars on a brownie i want an average size cut not a pretty much sliver of the top of one.

I was say the food here needs improvement but is a great...