The Blue Fox — Restaurant in New South Wales

Note: This is an edit of a previous review. 4 stars - 3 stars.

I visited the blue fox on Saturday with my family - it was okay-ish.

Upon entry, we were seated at a table near the middle of the room. My back was to the door. This unsettles me at the best of times, so take the rest of the review with a grain of salt (this won't be the last time I mention salt in this review, unfortunately).

Our table water was warm. I don't mind warm water. But it was a hot day, and I can warm water with my hand on the glass. I couldn't cool the water. Some ice cold table water would've been good.

We ordered potato skins and bread with EVOO for starters. Both were great. I was pleasantly surprised - after my first impressions, this was a high point. I live in the big smoke, and I eat out a lot, and my sister had to tell me what EVOO was. Maybe I'm uncultured, or maybe its an unnecessary acronym - you decide.

We had a fairly long wait for our mains. My girlfriend and I got the haloumi salad, my mother and sister got the salmon.

I tried the salmon - it was nice. Small portion though.

The haloumi salad was pretty dreadful. To begin with, it was okay, as while the haloumi was wayyyyy too salty, I could mix a small slice with couscous and a little bit of citrus, and it was nice. Problem is, I quickly ran out of couscous, and I was left with some strawberry jam and mango. Now I get it, we all enjoy My Kitchen Rules, but why does this dish exist? Why did I even think it would be a good idea to order it?

I should not have to figure out a flavour algorithm to divide my bites up to not die of salt or sweetness. If the haloumi is poor quality, just go to tofu, and then you can ditch the strawberry jam too. Its Lithgow - we don't need New York City fine dining, because as I'm sure the owners of CJs or whatever the Workies restaurant was named, Lithgow has a tradition of aspirational food falling flat on its face.

I was informed by the staff that a chef had quit, and I heard that the kitchen was closed at 6:30pm due to a lack of cooking staff - this is a big problem.

As somebody with a business degree and years of being a cynical douche on google reviews, I have some advice:

In my visits to the blue fox, the simple shared plates are always great - stick to the basics! The blue fox is a bar setting, and its primarily visited as a social venue. I suggest management look into places like the station bar in Katoomba, and many Asian (specifically Korean) restaurants in the city.

Your portions are too small, and the quality is super hit and miss in my experience. Perhaps there's issues keeping costs down... The menu is super limited as it is. Change the business model and go with more shared plates. Rather than a 200g salmon with a few pieces of pomegranate and assorted vegetables, why not go with some sashimi or 500g of grilled salmon chopped on a shared plate? It'll be easier, faster and save on labour costs.

I want you to be good. I need a reliable place to go with my family when I visit, because god damn I don't want to go to the workies bistro ever again. I want comfort. I want good portions. I want fast plates. I will pay over market for this. I will get in line at the bar behind some guy in a broad brim hat, kinda chatting up the girl at the bar, and I will wait my turn for a beer. But I don't want to do this with the knowledge that some chef in the kitchen is rolling their eyes because the menu was written by a middle aged lady binging my kitchen rules on the lounge. I don't want fruit in all of the dishes. I don't want to use gauge theory to figure out the optimal citrus/carb/protein ratio.

When I return I want more shared plates. Because I swear if I look up your menu in April and its the same, I won't go to Lithgow at all. Dear reader - will you tear my family apart in order to stick...

The last time I ate dinner in this building was when it was my favourite local Indian restaurant; Tamarin, about 11 years ago. I absolutely loved Tamarin, so I wondered if the Blue Fox team would give us an equally good experience. They’ve been there about 7 years now, I’m told, so they’re well into achieving the longevity that most teams would be pretty pleased with. Nice work, and especially in the current economical climate!

The buzz of happy diners on entry and the pleasantly renovated interiors were a promising sign as we walked in, and even though I’m autistic it was a level of noise I found I was able to cope with reasonably well. All the same, neurodivergent diners should probably bring their sensory aids just in case, as the space is still quite resonant with not many soft furnishings to absorb the noise. To look at, it’s a beautifully decorated space. It’s got a vibe of being “nice” but it’s not quite fine dining. You can dress up or down to eat here and it’d be appropriate either way. My American husband hates fine dining (bahaha) and I love a high standard of service because I’m trained for fine dining and love to deliver the “fancy” experience (whether I’m chef or on the floor that day)… the sort of service that is a bit posh and makes people feel special… so I’m delighted to find a place that pleases us both, because the food is obviously well-sourced, planned and prepared with great care, but there aren’t any white tablecloths or stiff waiters. In fact, the waiters seem to be intentionally selected for casual, informal style and BIG personality, even if their service is as equally attentive and well-timed as any fine dining floorstaff. After the second waiter to attend to our table attended to our needs and cracked a joke in a silly voice, I turned to my daughter and said, “The waiters here are huge dags. I kinda love them.” Diners who are a bit stuffy and like to treat waiters badly might hate that style of service, but I really felt myself going with it. Let floor staff be themselves, let them have fun. I dig it.

Our kid’s spagbol, prawn linguine and Cowra lamb came in great time considering the almost full house, and aside from my Italian counterpart’s so-so experience of his linguine, we had a wonderful meal. My daughter prefers my spagbol, but I’m pretty sure we all prefer our mum’s spagbol, and I’ve been paid to cook on and off for 27 years, so that’s not too fair a comparison. Haha. It was fine. She ate nearly all of it. It smelled great.

You’re gonna pay nearly $200 to feed a kid and theee hungry adults (with a couple of cocktails - DELICIOUS lemon meringue pie cocktail, by the way! Oh my LORD that thing tastes good!) but you’re gonna have a good time. Go enjoy yourself with these guys. We did....

You’ll find The Blue Fox Bar & Kitchen on Main Street, set away from the bulk of the commercial district. It’s an inviting space, with brick-lined archways and dungeon-like sliding wood doors allowing lots of different perspectives though the dining room. Industrial metal-footed tables, with metal struts shining through the wooden table-tops, pay homage to Lithgow’s iron and steel past. Large, ball-of-string inspired statement lights and strings of fairy lights crisscross the dining room.

The double-wide cottage’s front yard is also decorated in fairy lights, with a mad hatter’s tea party scene paying homage to Ironfest’s Once Upon A Time theme. The twenty-year-old festival is Lithgow’s biggest drawcard, benefiting hotels and restaurants alike. Tonight the dining room is full of locals and visitors, many still dressed in their festival costumes.

Craving something fast in the cold weather, we order Potato Skins ($14), which come with a too-cold pot of caramelised onion cream. They’re too thick to really be called skins, and under-seasoned, making them a bit boring to eat, particularly with such a paltry amount of onion cream. There’s more flavour in our Crispy Chicken Wings ($18/half kilo, $24/kilo), half-smothered in sticky hot Korean sauce (gochujang) that has nice, lip-tingling heat. We accompany these share-plates with a 2017 Heslop Chardonnay ($45/bottle) from the neighbouring wine region of Mudgee. It’s served quite cold, but improves as it warms, throwing fresh melon with the tiniest suggestion of oak.

With the Kiln-Braised Sticky Pork Ribs ($27) sold out by the time we placed our order quite early on a Sunday night, I downgrade to the Chicken Schnitzel ($25) served with standard fries, and a decent apple ‘slaw. The crumbing feels a bit oil soaked, but the bird itself is fine. It's served with a pot of the chef’s own take on Diane sauce is a weird, sweet disaster, I’m guessing through the use of overly sweet wine.

Saucing doesn’t improve with Scotch Fillet ($36), which arrives with a vaguely beefy, brown water that tastes of Bovril, and purports to be a red wine jus. Seasoning is just not done on anything - steak, mash, chips or schnitzel. The plates are too thick not to be heated, particularly in such a cold place, meaning our honey carrots arrive stone cold. The greens are completely undressed, making the truffle mash the plate’s savior, and a good foil for the grain-fed, Cowra fillet steak.

With more attention to detail on the plate, this attractive space could be more than a popular...