Orléans Restaurant and Bar — Restaurant in Sunshine Coast Regional

Venue and ambience if fantastic. Service was great. Staff were engaging, friendly, and accommodating. Food was really good overall. Goats Cheese with garlic honey was to die for. Will order that every time I come back. Perfection I tell you!!

Beef Cheeks, Scallops, cauliflower were fantastic. Portion sizes (something that so many Aussie fine dining locals get horribly wrong) was substantial. Especially in the seafood options.

We loved the the assortment of Marin, calamari, prawns and untraditional vegetables (Green beans is a "thumbs up" new twist that I will adopt at home) in what your menu advertised as "Gumbo." If I was ordering that dish as a "Seafood Soup" or traditional "Seafood Bouillabaisse" we would have been impressed. However,............... that dish is NOT Gumbo!

I'm a born & raised Louisiana native. My Mother is a 7th generation Cajun from the South Central Louisiana prairie country of Acadiana. My Dad is a 5th generation North Louisianan. On top of that I grew down the street and graduated high school with the makers and owners of Louisiana Fish Fry products, including working 10years during & post graduation from LSU managing their and other South Louisiana restaurants. I've lived and worked all over Louisiana and have been treated to most every version of home cooked family Gumbo from all of the smallest corners of the State, in addition to most of the finest New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Lafayette, and Lake Charles restaurants. There is a nearly endless number of tweaks to Gumbo, but this one is NOT truly among them.

On another menu item, we were disappointed in your "Jambalaya" option. I agree with pushing "artistic license, inspired by, and interpretive influence" in all dining cuisine. Who wants the "same-old, same-old" all of their life? Not me!! But when you best friend is the 2007 Jambalaya World Champion from Gonzales, Louisiana and you just enjoyed a bowl with seconds served in his own home over Christmas 2023, this menu listing is really quite distant from any version I've enjoyed.

Lastly, the dessert options on the 4 course tasting menu were a bit bland. We were really inspired by the 1st 2 courses, gave an overall "Good" rating to course 3, and agreed on a 2 out of 5 for the Chocolate tart, Coconut Panna Cotta, and Vanilla Beignets options. This in big part had to do with the heaviness of the Beignets. Beignets are a LIGHT doughnut, not a heavy robust doughnut.

What I want you to absolutely know is, we're coming back. We really enjoyed a lot of the food. There are a number of other menu options we also want to try, including some a close Sunshine Coast friend and Gonzales, Louisiana native have recommended to me. And especially the non-Louisiana named cuisine. As I said before the atmosphere is great and the staff are really good at what they do.

I understand I may be harshly biased from my background. But I'm passionate in regard to my heritage and culture. The best of which are the people and the food, in that order. You've got the French influence right. I look forward to the evolvement of Louisiana authenticity and many more dining experiences to come.

Happy to provide more feedback if...

If you have allergies this might not be the place for you. The restaurant knew about my allergies prior to our visit but I don't think it would've mattered if they didn't.

I am aware my allergies are mine to deal with but our waiter was pretty unhelpful in the matter. I have a nightshade allergy. The waiter had not thought to check which dishes were allergen-free prior to us ordering. The menus aren't very descriptive as to what each dish has in it so after finding out the tasting menu was unsuitable I asked the waiter to please ask the kitchen staff which meals contained any allergens.

He said to pick something from the menu and he'll talk to the kitchen. After picking 3 dishes and him returning to the kitchen 3 seperate times I couldn't have any of the 3. When he returned the 3rd time he assured me that the foods all contained paprika but it was a small amount and it shouldn't be an issue for me if I was to eat the food. Obviously with a severe allergy there is no safe amount to ingest. I asked if he could please simply as them what was safe to eat. Again he asked me to pick a few mains I would like and he'll go and ask. This back and forth continued for over 20 minutes. After picking the only dish without nightshades we ordered.

We had the honey and thyme baked goats cheese with truffle oil to start. There was no honey and no thyme on the cheese nor were there any hints of flavour. It was a plain lump of cold goats cheese swimming in an absurd amount of truffle oil.

I had the confit duck leg. The duck leg was overcooked and very dry, the other ingredients on the dish were bland. The oyster mushrooms and the blackberry jus were lovely but not lovely enough to make this an enjoyable dish.

The other main ordered was the smoked chilli beef fillet. The steak was seasoned well but unfortunately was also very dry, as were the potatoes. The red wine jus was delicious but the dish was missing the black garlic aioli.

We decided to skip the dessert list.

Taste is subjective and everyone enjoys different things but we will not be returning to Orleans - despite the high ratings it...

We usually spoil ourselves with a night our at Orleans for special occasions as the service is exceptional and food is divine. However, we recently dined at Orleans to celebrate my birthday, and I am disappointed to say that our experience was underwhelming. We had a table of 5 adults and 3 kids, ready to celebrate and have a great night. The food was great on the night however it did take much longer than usual to receive our meals. The service however was incredibly poor, almost non existent! Our table was left full of finished plates for at least 30min while waitstaff walked on past. Not once were we asked if they could clear the table, we had to actively call them over to take them away to make space. We had a waiter knock over a full glass of wine over the table and empty glasses piling up only to be cleared once during our 2.5hr booking time. To order another drink was like pulling teeth, just trying to get the waiters attention was hard enough. Due to the delays in food service and general table service we were unable to order dessert as by that time our kids (and the adults for that matter) had, had enough (did I mention it took 2.5hrs to have our entree and mains alone?!).

Like I said, usually Orleans is amazing and it is our go to restaurant, however this time we left really disappointed, not the special birthday dinner I was looking forward to! I’m hoping this was just a once off for the restaurant and not a reoccurring theme. We won’t be rushing back any...