The Milton Hotel — Restaurant in Milton

Wanted to like it, yet we left sensing they have a fair bit to sort out generally, let alone to live up to their pricing and the attitude we received.

Arrived and was excited to realise that the brewery was on-site and the fit out was impressive. After walking in and looking around, we found someone to take us to our seats and sat down to a few paper menus scattered on our table, bistro style. The prices on the paper menus suggested table service, yet after 15 mins of waiting, I decided that perhaps it is actually bistro service and so I got up and asked a waitress if it was table or bistro service. She informed me it was table service and that she would take my order shortly.

We ordered and moments later, our waitress returned to take our order again. Not just clarify an aspect of it, She’d completely forgotten it. (Pork, lamb, fries, salad…)

My beer (the hazy IPA) was top shelf and my wife’s wine was ok. He mains arrived and we had to ask for a plate for our 4th guest. Bringing 3 plates to a table of four adults was an obvious miss.

Mains were just ok, but pushing the boundaries of the pricing/flavour matrix for the price… think Nomad (Sydney) prices without the wood-fire finesse or distinction of flavour in their sauces. They were too bland for the cut of meat they were matched with and became a bit of a passenger to the dish.

Chips were too heavily salted, although it was a brewery so that could be excused if ordered during a drinking session.

Lamb was rare for half of it and genuinely raw for the other half.

We also had two kids, yet we were tabled right next to a couple who were trying to enjoy date night, despite there being a raft of other tables available and a few other families in the restaurant. Pro tip: cluster families together and away from couples. Plenty of space affords them this option to improve overall experience of all.

Whilst paying and sharing our feedback, the manager decided to argue our points and suggest that we should have flagged them during the meal, which is fair if we hadn’t been sat so close to a few couples who were obviously annoyed their night was interrupted by a family of four plus two toddlers. The wait staff also could have made an effort to a) read the room and b) come over and ask us midway through our meal how we were going. Which even casual restaurants make an effort to do.

Overall, the cracking venue and beer list was let down by their lack of general customer service / self awareness, below par cooking (relative to their price point) and limited menu.

I suggest treating this joint more like a bar, than...

I've eaten here a couple of times with some girlfriends and we enjoyed the place and experience.

This visit was with a family group on a holiday weekend and the hotel was good about accommodating two extra at late notice.

Food: Food is good, but expensive. Some items like the flatbread ($18) are overpriced. We also ate the slow cooked lamb shoulder ($95). I liked it but others in my group thought it needed to be cooked with more seasoning. Prawns and sashimi were good as were the vegetable sides we ordered. It would be nice to see some non cuciferous vegetables or more salads on the menu.

Drinks: Good selection of cocktails, wine and beer.

Service: Great, good, and woeful. Our greeter was lovely and the waitstaff did their best but unfortunately there were not enough of them for how busy it was on a holiday weekend (considering there was a hefty holiday weekend surcharge they could have had more staff).

We had an issue with one cocktail (Watermelon Margy) which did not list chilli as an ingredient on the menu. When we took the item back to the bar to make inquiries, the bartender (we were later told he was an owner and "was like that") said it was only chilli salt on the rim and to get over it. Unfortunately the chilli salt mixed in to the cocktail, and made it the overwhelming and overpowering flavour. He was extremely rude and did not offer to make a new cocktail just sent us away. The server did end up taking the drink away and offered another but by that stage I wasn't confident as to what the bartender/owner might do to the next cocktail.

When we went to pay it was included in the total bill. They did eventually take it off.

Overall we still had a nice time and the food was good. It's probably quite overpriced for what you get but I understand that running a business isn't cheap and that eating out everywhere is expensive these days.

I will be unlikely to ever return again and neither will the people in our party that day. This is largely due to the rude way we were treated by an owner of the establishment. I just can't support someone who is that rude to their customers who are paying top dollar for...

There tend to be pubs and gastro-pubs. The Milton Hotel manages to straddle that divide by having a laid back vibe but also putting out restaurant-quality food. It helps that the open-plan dining room, edged in glass but centred around a blazing domed pizza oven, feels casual rather than stuffy. It has pared back decor: not much more than blonde wood tables and school room chairs, hanging paper lanterns and draped greenery. With a wrap-around back deck, it makes you think of the impending summer, even on a cold wintery evening.

The pub is home to the Dangerous Ales brewery, who first introduced me to floral Ryefield hops in a hazy pale ale I drank in Pambula. They make a delicious Killer Raspberry Sour ($11.50/middy) and an earthy blackberry and beetroot gose—One Eyed Purple People Eater ($13.50/middy)—that drinks flatter and may be an acquired taste. Wines, like the savoury La Violetta Grenache ($16.50/glass), are interesting and all available by the glass, so mix and match to your heart’s content.

The menu, put together by owner/chef Damien Martin (ex-Quay), is designed to be shared. Risk sticky fingers by ripping straight into blistered and puffy wood-fired bread ($18.50) sitting in a pool of smoked mussel butter. Fire-roasted Clyde River oysters ($30/4) make hot chicken fat work balanced by ponzu and finger lime, with a hole left to taste the gob-stopping bivalve. Potato scallops ($12/2) are bite-sized and airy, cheffy but without straying too far from what made you love ‘em in the first place. The wagyu beef short rib ($70) was a stonker-you portion for two people. The wombok ‘slaw and sesame crumb was such a good counterpoint, I was tempted to beg for a recipe. BBQ gai lan ($19.50) lashed with whipped tofu, fermented chilli and black vinegar, was messy to serve but a smoky revelation. We were tempted to dine again this evening, stopped only by them not opening on...