OHMYPAPA — Restaurant in Newcastle-Maitland

The "good" food does not save this restaurant from a bad review! I WILL NOT RETURN and WILL NOT RECOMMEND THIS PLACE!

We waited 2 hours for our meal with no real apology or compensation. We simply received "Yeh sorry - we lost your order. Here's your bill".

I had to ask twice to have the glass of wine I ordered brought to the table after waiting 25 minutes.

The place is confused - it's trying to be upmarket (the food isn't cheap) but it is run like a cheap dive restaurant.

They are so understaffed for the amount of customers they are trying to cram in.

I would guess they are NOT Covid Safe (the place is packed so much you can barely move).

The bathroom is external. There is no signage or directions, and the door was often locked so you couldn't get access.

MORE DETAILS....

I attended with my husband for a 7:30pm reservation. They were clearly very busy but we were seated after an acceptable amount of wait time. However, we were seated at a FOLD OUT PICNIC TABLE that was just slapped in any space it could fit. It was the only picnic table in the restaurant - so it was definitely an afterthought where they wanted to just cram more people in. Did I mention - I'm 6ft and my husband 6'8 - so we did not fit at this table. Neither of us could get our legs under the table. We asked to move to a different table (which they accommodated).

After this, our drinks order was taken immediately and our drinks arrived in a reasonable amount of time. We placed our food order when our drinks were delivered. This is where it all starts to turn into a negative experience.

After about 10 minutes from finishing our drinks, we try and motion a staff member over so we could order another. No waitstaff EVER came to our table proactively. We ordered a second round of drinks after someone FINALLY came over. After waiting 25 minutes for a glass of wine and a beer - I had to ask TWICE where our drinks were. They finally arrived after about 30 minutes of waiting (which is ridiculous for what we ordered).

After 1 HOUR AND 45 MINUTES, and noticing other tables who were seated AFTER us were receiving their food, we again had to call a staff member over to ask where our food was. We then had to reorder. Our meals were delivered to our table after 2 HOURS of being seated. No real apology was given. No compensation or a complementary drink.

We went to leave and asked what happened. They said we lost your order. We expressed how disappointed we were and it was just shrugged off with a "yeh - sorry". Then we were passed our bill. No compensation for losing our order. I don't attend a restaurant and expect anything for "free", but I DO expect a certain level of service - a level of service that reflects the prices we are being charged.

The food was good. I wont say anything negative about that. Portions were on the smaller side for the prices being charged, but again - I can't fault the food. But in this case, it isn't about the food, it's about the experience and it was down right terrible.

The service is seriously lacking here and some major adjustments need to be made if this place wants to be what it's trying to be - one of Newcastle's nicer restaurants.

I hope OH MY PAPA takes this feedback on board. Return business is worth much more than daily turnover. Our bill was $150. We enjoyed the food but the service was so bad we won't return. Mistakes happen and orders get lost. But the way you handled it was appalling. If this is the experience of others also, you will lose a lot of...

Arrived at the restaurant all dressed up, excited and on time for our Booking. Got seated at a nice table but asked if we could sit at the vacant table next to us only bc it allowed easier access in and out of seats with my broken arm, but immediately told no. It’s booked. They are fully booked tonight. Ok. Yep. I’ve been in hospitality many years. I get it. Nod nod wink wink. You don’t want a tip. I wasn’t over annoyed, but thought maybe I just need a drink. So we found the piece of paper listing beers/wines. And I’m disappointed again… limited very basic list of red wine No name brands. Honestly, You can get a better wine list from An outback central Australian servo than here . But then I thought hmm maybe, it’s a special wine from a selected up and coming hunter vineyard. So I asked if it would be too much trouble to taste a little of the Shiraz considering I was only interested in buying a bottle (you can also buy it by the glass) ok. Yes.., off she went. Came back with a tasting but… Ewww it was horrible. Hubs gave it a taste and thought it may be old. Perhaps the bottle will taste different he suggested, we tasted their cab, Much to the annoyance of the waiter who rolled her eyes… as we didn’t want anymore bad vibes, we quickly ordered a bottle of their cab. Bottle wasn’t any different, It was horrible. Husband asked if they were BYO. Nope. So folks if you like a no name Shiraz or cab with a slightly better vintage of 2021 that doesn’t taste like cough medicine your not going to enjoy a nice bottle of wine eating beautiful food here. Then suddenly we got a different waiter who seemed to be more caring towards me as I mentioned I wasn’t keen on the wine and can I just drink water, she produced a bottle of 2019 Grenache from somewhere out the back, which wasn’t too bad. Not that I would buy it again except if we came back here to eat.

Now let me tell you about the Food…it was amazing!!!. We had starters but was told we had to have our second course before our starters bc they take longer to cook. Ok. But honestly the food is brilliant. I couldn’t have been happier with our decision to eat here. It was different, prices were ok but we don’t care paying a bit more for good speciality style flavored food. Like I couldn’t perfect this at home. And those dumplings with the sauce… best ever.

One star removed for the worst wine list in Australia. Considering they are an hour from some of Australia’s best vineyards I find it’s out of sync with the food they’re serving. It doesn’t...

I spent $121 here on a vegan banquet and walked away still hungry, disappointed and dissatisfied! They even tried to serve me dairy even though I told them I have an allergy (could have ended up in hospital). Lucky I had my thinking cap on and told them "this dish you just served me is vegetarian isn't it meaning it has dairy in it right - I can't have this I'm allergic" then they fixed it... Who thinks a banquet should mean a large amount of food? I certainly did! Then ended up getting extremely small portions - you can go to LightYears on darby st basically around the corner for the same money and get a huge amount of food. So yeah don't go here and support these people who don't take your allergies seriously or even care at all about your dietary requirements. Another thing to say would be they gave a decent serve of CHEAP fried rice which was basic and boring! They could easily make it nicer with bits of "tofu bacon" or Banana Blossom (both are on the menu) but ofcourse they don't do that for a vegan/veg version!!! The dessert at the end was a Banana Spring roll type of dish which probably was just a frozen thing out of a packet from an asian grocer and may have even had some dairy in the wrapper/pastry! The banquet dessert (Banana roll) is also supposed to come with Dairy Ice Cream right but when they made me pay the bill I didn't get even a slightly discounted price coz of no ice cream - so still full price but if I was vegetarian I would have got a nice helping of ice cream. So in conclusion I would never recommend this place and will...