BLANCA Honeysuckle — Restaurant in Newcastle-Maitland

There were high expectations in our minds about going to Blanca for my daughter's birthday celebration. It is a popular restaurant having only relatively recently opened.

The decor is fresh and the staff were very friendly and inviting. We viewed the drinks and the menu and the pricing was at a high level ............ but it must be great food we thought.

I personally travel frequently for my work and dine at cafes and high-end restaurants around Australia and sometimes overseas so can contrast those restaurants where it works and when it doesn't. Unfortunately, Blanca is in the category of it doesn't work, but it could if the owners considered what I am about to write.

The food is way overpriced for what was delivered. I have a grilled king prawn dish which was $42 for three prawns, split open as you would expect for a lobster and then a tablespoon of lentils and chickpeas on top. Another dish at the table was King Prawn pasta (smaller king prawns than the former plate) and this comprised a few pieces of flat pasta, three peeled prawns and then about 2/3 a cup of what tasted like prawn bisque. The prawns in this dish weren't deveined giving a crunch texture (yuk). The Patatas off the Sides list comprised of a small bowl of chunky chips with some feta sprinkled on it all for $12 and described as hand cut, the author questions if they were hand cut at the restaurant as they were very uniform(maybe handcut by McCain), but 20 chips for $12 is a little rich.

Now the delivery of the food was intriguing, the menu comprised of "to Start", "Mezze", Plates, "Sides" and different people in our group ordered from different categories. Unfortunately, someone ordered Flatbread and after about 40 minutes it came out. No other food for those who ordered Mezze or just Plates. 35 minutes later the Mezze plates came out but some people only ordered from the Plates list. So they sat there waiting for another 40 minutes and then the Plates came out. Guess what, the Sides took another period of time. when asked where the dishes were we were told that they only do one category at a time per table. While this works well for a set menu or when everyone orders from the same category but created much angst for those who had waited around 2 hours before getting any food.

The pick of the dishes was the Yellow Fin Tuna as far as presentation and flavour but again 4 or so thin slices of Tuna, a quartered fig, olives and balsamic but for $29 is extreme for what was an entree sized meal but supposed to be a share plate.

The food itself was delicious, the staff friendly and helpful, but often confused and constantly reporting items “we have run out”, decor and atmosphere was great but this is a restaurant that is trying to find its way with regards to servicing sizes and also speed of delivery.

All people in our party left feeling hungry which shouldn't be the case when fine dining. PS: best servings came from the birthday cake which we brought. PPS: The photos on their website show far more generous servings!

My recommendation is that the restaurant looks at how it gets the food to the patrons in a more time-efficient manner, either increasing the portion sizing or reducing the pricing as customers leaving hungry will spoil what could be one of Newcastle's top restaurants.

This review is meant to be constructive to help the restaurant succeed before...

Visually impressive, excellent food, friendly staff but some restaurant management strategies need to be put into place for Blanca to stay popular. Blanca looks beautiful. The decor is unique, fresh & impressive. We dined tonight, on a Saturday evening, and were booked outside under the canopy on the terrace. The atmosphere was great. The welcome from the staff was warm & friendly. Presented with the drinks & food menu, we ordered pre dinner drinks. My choice of cocktail from the menu was unavailable. We ordered gin & tonics instead. The food menu is small in choice but varied, interesting & looked excellent. On ordering, we were told that the tuna, lamb, Mediterranean spinach pie & hand cut potato chips were all unavailable. As we were the first sitting for dinner, this was certainly pretty ordinary news. We changed our order to what was available. The beverage menu has some excellent wines & we ordered some local Semillon. Our waiter announced that he thought they'd run out of that choice too but said he'd check. Luckily, he came back with a bottle saying that he'd found one. We'd ordered a variety of share plates & mains. The meals, which did arrive, were truly great in taste, presentation & quality. We loved the food we received. Unfortunately, we did not receive all of what we ordered, missing out on the octopus share plate. Our waiter cleared our table before we were able to let him know that we were still waiting for part of our meal. In the end, the meal was taken from the bill as we never did receive it. Lining up to pay, there was no system for the staff to know our table to raise the account. There were many people milling about waiting to pay and others waiting to come in. The staff member had to walk with me, back through the restaurant & the terrace to our table, to identify where we'd dined (no table number or identification) Disorganisation & lack of any clear service system was really obvious. Unfortunately for this beautiful new restaurant, with fantastic food on offer, the friendly & helpful staff are simply not trained & managed well enough to cope. To run out of so many meal choices on a first dinner sitting indicates poor kitchen management too. May the owner & management crew of Blanca lift their game to organise themselves so that this beautiful restaurant survives. The staff are willing & lovely but just need...

I regret to say that my experience at this establishment was nothing short of disgraceful, prompting me to give a rare 1-star rating, as there is unfortunately no option for zero stars. From the very beginning, the service fell short of any reasonable expectation. We arrived on time for our pre-booked dinner, only to be left waiting in the welcome area. After some time, we were informed that a customer had a serious accident in the restaurant, and that such incidents occurred frequently. This was very alarming. The staff had little knowledge of the drinks menu, particularly when it came to the wines. The Chardonnay I received was far from what I had requested, and when I opted for a rosé, it was equally unsatisfactory, failing to match the tasting notes I had described. While I did enjoy a cocktail, it was quite basic considering the price. Additionally, the conditions of the establishment were concerning. The floor near the bathrooms was visibly wet, and the “wet floor” signs were placed in hard-to-see areas, posing a safety hazard for both guests and staff. The wait time between meals was unacceptable, and we noticed significant inconsistencies in portion sizes for the same dishes ordered for our table. For instance, we (us and our friends) both ordered saganaki; one plate was cooked perfectly, while the other was burnt to a crisp and nearly inedible. The seafood in the pappardelle was overcooked and chewy, and although the whole fish was well-cooked, it lacked any flavor. To add to the chaos, a male waiter accidentally dropped a glass, shattering it under our table and even hitting my friend. Shockingly, he did not apologise and remained extremely rude for the rest of the evening, which only added to our dissatisfaction. While the decor was nice, it did not live up to the hype that it has received. For approximately $500 for four guests, I expected a much higher standard of service and quality. It’s disheartening to see such potential squandered by poor management and a lack of basic customer service skills. I sincerely hope that improvements are made, but I will not...