The Buoys Nelson Bay - Restaurant, Cafe And Bar — Restaurant in Nelson Bay

Many of the google reviews of The Buoys at the Bay are positively glowing but based on my experience I honestly can't agree. It was nice but not even close to 5 star worthy. When you check their website and read the reviews you get the impression it's aiming to be fine dining but it's not.

On the plus side the staff were very welcoming and pleasant and it's wonderful to have another restaurant choice in the Port Stephens area. However there were quite a few things that could be improved on:

Service: whilst pleasant it was not professional. We opted for BYO and were left to pour our own drinks. I had to ask for a bottle opener and even then the staff didn't offer to uncork the bottle for me. My entree was not cleared by the time mains were brought to the table. Cans of soft drink were handed out rather than drinks being offered in a glass (excusable at KFC but not at this place) and we were asked to leave because they were closing at 9.30pm even though we'd not ordered dessert yet. Apparently we'd been offered dessert and we'd declined despite no one in my party of 8 having any knowledge of this. And bare in mind we had a 7.30pm booking, arrived on time and the restaurant was not busy. So it took 2 hours to have some oysters and mains.

Food: started with oysters which were very good. Mains were generally disappointing. The squid ink linguini was very underwhelming - when done right it's a dish to die for but this was not even close. More like black pasta smothered in tomato sauce. My guests had the crab ravioli which was reported to be bland and the pork belly was chewy. I'd love to report back on the dessert, but unfortunately this never eventuated.

Overall I'm glad this option is available in Nelson Bay and it should be supported. Improvements can easily be made from the service point of view and this would make the experience considerably better. The food was fine but...

Up for a weekend away and dropped in for lunch. Nice looking place with modern reno. Burgers were quite nice, and other food ordered at the table looked good too. What dropped the experience was the service. Started good with showing us to a table and bringing table water plus our order but then there was little service from there. Drinks took 15mins and were heavily placed on the table (wouldn't comment this unless it was as jarring as it was) and same with the food with no smile or wish to enjoy the meal, which seemed a little dismissive. On top of this, once our food had arrived, we had no cutlery and I got up and proceeded to place our cutlery and napkins for my friends as if I were working there - which is really what is prompting this review. At this same time when we were waiting for cutlery other tables received cutlery but not us - mind you, this did not seem like a busy day. When paying was asked how it all was and said 'yeah alright thanks' and was then prompted that I could be honest and say how i really found it - a little off putting, as if searching for anything negative, and personally not something I would engage with in person unless there was something terrible.

Overall nice food and atmosphere in mid-price range but probably...

This restaurant has the looks and vibes but don't be fooled. It dresses up very low quality food. None of the seafood is fresh.

The crab ravioli may as well be "Latina" from Woolies. The contents were so mushed there was no way you could tell if there was actual crab in there or just newspaper. The dishes come out looking good but have hardly any flavour. Also agree with the powdered parmesan comment from an earlier reviewer.

This place lures in a lot of tourists. I'm sorry I got caught.

In response to the owner, I don't think the business is a scam, I just want to let potential customers know what to expect.

Having some experience in the restaurant business, I know a complaint on the day about how you prepare a dish will hardly result in an immediate change. The most you could have done is probably provide a discount on the bill. But instead I will just let you and any readers know what I didn't like about the dishes.

So instead of saying "yeah but our crab ravioli is really popular" you could say "we will not process the filling so much in future". The "best pasta maker in the bay" would know how delicate crab meat is and try to get the most out of the texture, instead of blending it...