Tidal Restaurant & Wine Bar — Restaurant in Merimbula

Tidal Restaurant & Wine Bar in Merimbula attracts nearly all five star Google reviews, many from faceless reviewers who haven’t included a photo or reviewed anything else. Many “recommend” the place, comment on the “table service” rather than what they ate, or explain “facts” like no other venue in Merimbula offers a similar view. As a diner, what I look for are reviews from regular reviewers that focus on food and flavour, so here goes…

Set at the base of the Crown Apartments, Tidal offers an oyster lease view of Merimbula through wide open windows that let in the balmy sea breeze. The greeting is warm, from a floor team that feels more family-run than sophisticated. This has some bumps, like a server who says “I’m fifteen” when we try to place an urgent wine order after our entree arrives. The pale green pan-seared squid and green pea risotto ($23) buried the squid under the taste of crisp house-seared bacon and, while competently cooked, it lacked punch. The Garagiste Terre Maritime Chardonnay 2021 ($80) on the other hand, is a whole lot of wine for a ridiculously low markup: highly recommended.

The bread, which arrived after both our entree and our wine, was matched to a bright acidic hummus. It probably would have worked better to enliven our palates at the start of the meal. A pair of mains arrived next, but they were for another table. The correct orange roughy fillet ($46) followed shortly after. While I usually try to avoid eating this slow-growing fish, it’s popularity on menus is easy to understand. It’s mild in flavour so suited its Champagne cream and Avruga caviar treatment. There’s also a technically spot on zucchini flower stuffed with prawn mousseline, chives, carrot purée, broccolini, a green oil, and a salt cod croquette. It’s a lot, but the elements were nicely arranged on the plate.

The same roast carrot purée and green oil were the base of the Surf and Turf ($49) where chewy buffalo tenderloin slices joined a king prawn, scallop and two mussels presented on the half shell. The bivalves were charred in a brown sauce my palate struggled to unpick (or like). Salted roast cashews made odd bedfellows with broccoli and silverbeet ($10) purported to have been cooked in brown butter. Not one to waste a good nut, I picked them out and ate them separately. The crispy oven-fried potatoes ($10) with confit garlic and thyme were some of the best fried spuds I’ve eaten. There’s skill in the kitchen but the combinations didn’t quite hang...

We were very much looking forward to our visit based on other reviews but left disappointed. Both dishes we ordered (fish and risotto) were lacking subtlety of flavour. The fish was floating in a cream sauce which lacked any real flavour and made the dish overly heavy without any enhancement to the taste other than drowning the natural flavour of the fish. The risotto came with zucchini flowers which looked and tasted like they were well past freshness. The steam veg we ordered as a side comprised of green beans and broccolini. But the broccolini was not trimmed properly and hence had stalks close to 2cms wide which were totally inedible due to their thickness/hardness. All this would have been much easier to stomach at $30 per head instead of the close to $50 we were charged. Very overpriced for the quality of the food and flavours. The service was also lacking. The waiter who took our order didn’t seem to have any knowledge of the menu. He initially said that the risotto wasn’t available as an entree. When we pointed out the risotto was listed as a main he said it was sold out (this was a 6pm booking btw). When we asked if there were any other vegetarian options given the risotto was the only vegetarian main he suggested we could order a bowl of steamed vegetables and a salad. After checking with the kitchen we were informed that the risotto was in fact available after all. After our main course the waiter (a different one) asked if we wanted to look at the dessert menu. We said ‘yes please’. Ten minutes later we were still waiting for the menu to arrive and at that point decided to cut our loses and leave. When we went to pay we had to wait a few minutes for the bill to be recalculated because our drinks hadn’t been added to the bill. The waiter preparing the bill for us said this was because ‘the girl who took your drinks order didn’t add them to the bill’. The thing is ‘the girl’ who took our drinks order was the same ‘girl’ who was adding up the bill! Not the experience we were hoping for, particularly given we paid $150 for two mains, a couple of sides and two drinks (and no...

On line reviews suggest this establishment is fine dining. Unfortunately I wish I could agree, but the experience my wife and I had was far from it. Although we had reservations we were placed against the wall whilst others who walked in off the street were given seats that had uninterrupted views across Merimbula Lake. As my wife does not eat a lot she ordered the entree of gnocchi, yet in a main meal size, while I ordered oysters Kilpatrick for entree and Tidals take of a Surf and Turf with buffalo and seafood. The gnocchi was served with a duck ragu which my wife seemed to enjoy but thought the pieces of gnocchi were a little bit small but were tender. She also commented that it looked like a fairly small serving for what was meant to be a main meal size. The oysters Kilpatrick looked nice, however, the Kilpatrick sauce was a bit bland with no real taste of the Worcestershire Sauce that makes oysters Kilpatrick what they are, although the oysters themselves were fresh and plump. The buffalo was a disappointment, with 2 reasonably size pieces of meat, a very large king prawn, a scallop and some mussels served on the plate. The seafood was cooked to perfection but the buffalo left a lot to be desired. One piece was undercooked and one overcooked and both bits were a bit chewy and stringy for my liking. Meal done and time came to pay the bill. In most establishments when you upsize an entree to a main it will cost more, but not double the cost of the entree. We were charged $52 for a bowl of gnocchi. If I buy ½ dozen beers from a bottle shop for $30 I don’t expect to pay double that for a full case of 24 bottles, yes, certainly dearer but not double. I would’ve expected the main meal sized serving of gnocchi to be around the cost of the entree with an extra 60-70% on top of that for main meal size, taking the cost to around $44. Maybe the kitchen was having an off day and to their credit, the restaurant refunded the cost of my main meal, but unfortunately this experience left a metaphoric bad taste in our mouth. The negatives outweighed the positives on...