Merewether Surfhouse — Restaurant in Newcastle-Maitland

We'd been here a few times since it opened a number of years ago & it was always great. Never inexpensive yet always a pleasant experience & great food.

Unfortunately, I'm sincerely hoping, we just timed an infrequent poor day last Sunday. Main (low) points being:- ▪︎we were tersely chastised at our table for ordering drinks at the bar. Our issue was that we were consistently waiting to obtain anyone's attention to procure same. ▪︎ meals are not cheap here, which is fine when you take in the cost they must incur for the location. However, everyone's meals (except our grandchildren!) were very well under-proportioned. The steak meal appeared tiny & you needed bifocals to see the the mussels in the seafood pasta etc... ▪︎ I would suggest the restaurant install some acoustic tiles or install windows that marginally open on a nice day to mitigate the overpowering & overwhelming room noise. You honestly had to shout to hear the person opposite you. ▪︎ we asked for our bday cake to be brought out at the end of our meals. This took approx 10mins for any movement. Then, it sat in our clear view for 5mins more without being brought to the table. At one stage, the chefs & waitresses all had a clearly visible meeting with lots of laughter & what appeared to be storytelling for a significant timeframe; with cake still in clear view. As we had grandchildren in attendance, this time was not pleasantly received. Our politically correct response to the grandchildren was that they must be busy, yet even 5 year olds could clearly see that they weren't. ▪︎ lastly, we had only been to this establishment in 4days prior to me testing positive for covid. There is honestly nowhere else I could have come in contact with a covid positive person. I would suggest more thorough cleaning of bar & toilet doors-surfaces, at a minimum. In due retrospect since, this was not witnessed once in our 2hr stay.

Again, I really do hope this restaurant had a bad day as we previously loved celebrating family-friend milestones here. However, if it was not, and if you're after a pleasant restaurant experience with aptly proportioned food & high (visible) hygiene ethics,, then maybe reconsider this one for somewhere...

The most inattentive service I have possibly ever had at any restaurant, EVER. We were seated, and asked for drinks twice within the first minute. That’s where the service ended. We ordered drinks and food, okay I hear you say, well the entrees were delivered in under 5 minutes. You can’t make fresh food that quickly. Then the drinks arrived. We happily ate our entree, it was pretty good. Then after that, we wondered what we had done wrong. Nobody came to ask us how things were, cleared our table or asked if we wanted any more drinks. Then our mains arrived, about 35 minutes after we had finished entrees. The waitress put our mains next to the dirty entree plates, didn’t clear them and went on her merry way. Mind you she had walked past us at least 6 times, without looking at our table that had the dirty entree plates on the spare part of our table. Nobody asked us how anything was. The manager even walked past us multiple times and, NOTHING. I even hailed him down and asked him if I could order a glass of wine with my main. You guessed it, he forgot to come back. I had to order it when my mains got placed next to my dirty entree plates. So I got up to pay after we had finished our meals and fixed up the bill. I was clearly upset. Even then, no questions asked. The food was okay, don’t get me wrong but the service was so bad that we both looked at each other and agreed that they weren’t getting any more of our money for desserts. I would have bought this up with the staff if they had of asked, but they couldn’t care less. If I owned this place, I would be appalled to read this review but I guarantee nobody responds to me. Do yourself a favour. Walk up to the beach hotel and have a pub feed. You may need to get your own meal and drink but at least you’ll get your...

Without a doubt the most stunning vistas on the East Coast and probably globally. That’s where it stops the bar staff on arrival were cold and lacked what I would call a friendly face. Asked for an iron Jack no asked for an extra dry no opted for a JD and Dry she then fluffed about. No thank you no smile COLD alike the beer taps. We then sat for lunch then harassed to order by at least three different waitresses. We ordered some olives and on their recommendation their pizza flat bread. Olives were tepid not warm the flat bread dry and hard we tore at it to seperate the four large slices olives mainly consisted of hard larger green olives. Ask for a bottle of Perone got a Hahn in a glass. Ask for bottle of Sauvignon Blanc got Chardonnay no bigger but they were not listening. Our lunch order was one duck one swordfish now pol belly and something called salami Not one meal was nice the salami dish was horrid not eaten the swordfish had been frozen was cooked had no flavour residual water in fish fish tepid asked for salt and pepper it arrived about ten mins later salt was empty ask for another none came. Fish had Neto under cooked potatoes and 6 small cooked tomatoes and something I couldn’t identify and all COLD. The duck was dry and over cooked the pork belly was tasteless and tepid also. All in all the meals were a disaster I would not recommend eating here at all. They must par cook and then reheat and not successfully so. We then asked for coffees and a glass of wine my coffee was wrong and I never got my glass of wine. The waitress attention to detail was lacking the meals I have had better in...