Lana — Restaurant in Sydney

I have always been a fan of Lana ever since it opened and it takes a lot for me to leave a negative review, however, this one is warranted.

This was my fourth time to Lana and I was really excited organise an overdue catchup with friends to celebrate a friend’s 30th birthday for the truffle dinner. Unfortunately, that is where the excitement ended.

The service felt scattered, off tempo and the team seemed to be confused on what point they were at through the night.

Multiple drinks were sent to wrong tables and when advised they were not ours, we received looks of dismay.

At one point it was nearly 50 minutes between courses and when our server came to take our plates away, they were not aware of what we just had or what was to come next.

Dishes came out of order on how it was written on the menu. Now, it seems trivial, but when queried on why a dish was brought out of order, the server got confused on where we were in the menu, asked whether we had received something we had already had and then insinuated that we had read the menu wrong, when in fact, they had referred to the bug as a lobster and tried to send the wrong plate.

The vibe in the kitchen was not vibing. Sat in the corner of the restaurant, next to an area where glasses were left and cutlery cleaned, combined with ambient music, we could still hear Chef calling and repeating orders, perhaps another sign that the ship was not sailing smoothly.

There were some tasty plates, specifically, the snacks, raviolo and final dessert, however, the overall menu lacked seasoning, any real punch of flavour and fell flat.

In particular, there were 2 dishes, priced at $85 and $25 respectively, which were add ons that need mentioning.

The "Wagyu, daikon, tongue, gnocchi alla romana" came in at $85. In normal circumstances, totally reasonable in the Sydney food scene, however, this is going to sound harsh, it was like a supermarket rump steak that had been served with some doughy gnocchi. We were looking for a saving grace within this dish and we were met with absolutely no seasoning at all and were left chewing far longer than we should have, to the point where there was no second bite had by either one of us.

The other dish I would like to call out is the burnt cheesecake. At $25, this read amazing on paper. "Burnt ricotta cheesecake, malfroys honey, truffle", delicious! What we received was a grainy, paper thin, just baked hot, and I mean hot cheesecake. Not the luxurious taste or texture we have come to know and love. If this has been prepared with time to set as large thick cheesecakes, sliced to order and covered with truffles, it would have been perfection.

When raising our concerns with staff, it was like we bit the hand that fed us and they essentially wanted nothing to do with us from that point on. The team leader that was around for all of service, rather than coming to see what had gone wrong, disappeared and stayed out of the main dining room for the remainder of our stay.

Our servers for the night had been moved to other sections and we were left to deal with a server that previously had nothing to do with our section, for what it seems, was because we weren’t happy.

As previously mentioned, I had given pre-advice on arrival that we were celebrating a birthday. I now assume that it was because we were not happy but that was the first and last mention of the birthday.

I appreciate that the wagyu and the cheesecake plus one glass of house wine were taken off the total bill, the real kicker in the guts, is that we were expected to pay a 7% gratuity, totalling $46.

We were questioned on why we requested it to be removed before it took another 15 minutes for the server to come back with the amended bill.

The total was close to $670 for 3 people post amendment. We definitely did not get our money's worth, feel a little bit robbed and were quite happy to leave, frankly.

I have recommended Lana to multiple people on multiple occasions, and I am afraid to say that I am very, very hesitant to ever...

After a wonderful experience at Grana, which I visited with friends in December, I booked Lana to celebrate my wedding anniversary and birthday. However, I regretted my choice.

Firstly, none of the food was good. Snacks: four different snacks were delivered on ice plates, but this size for two people seemed rather meagre in terms of serving size. The serving size is quite disappointing, although it is large enough for a large group of people. During the course of the meal, a black substance was randomly placed in the ice, so we checked inside and found that it was a topping for one of the dishes. (Grains used for the cucumber starter.) It did not fall out while being carried, but was in the middle layer of ice that was laid quite tightly, so I wondered if they had added more ice on top of the ice dish used by the previous group and put our starter on top of that. I felt that this was not a good feeling from the start.

We ordered beef for an additional $40. I understand that it is cooked and then grilled over charcoal so it is easy to burn, but the outside was completely charred. (It actually turned charcoal lol) And the sauce that was poured over it and the edible flowers that seemed to be trying to be pretty but were not necessary. When I told the manager that this beef should not be served, she offered me an alternative, but I questioned whether she could really do the maths.

Alternatives offered: Different main course. The Snapper we ordered as the other main was smelled quite fishy, so we knew that we could not expect another main course will be better.

Waive the additional $40 for the main course and get a free dessert. (=Served 3 course but charged as 2 course menu price) ＞But in this case we only had one main course, so I don't understand why we were even charged for 2 courses, but she insisted on minus $40 up front. It's not surprising that we didn't eat it, and we lose money.

It had been quite long time since the snacks and I was already full from the starter. In the end, I suggested that she guess the oyster portion I asked for ($8x4 = $32) as I didn't need a new main course, and she agreed. Even the oysters were better than the ones at Grana, including the size; Grana's oysters were fat, while Lana's were small and skinny and cost more. (Photo attached).

The staff were also dressed quite rough, with mullet hair, shorts and dirty white trainers, which did not match the venues that you specifically say "the 5-star experience of food, drink, service and atmosphere is very important". I know it is a personal choice, but shouldn't there at least be organised guidelines? At least I did not have a 'five-star experience'. The male waiter who looked after us was very friendly and nice. That is only good things...

It's not so often I get to dine at up-scale fine dining restaurants with my significant other so I really savour meals like these. I've wanted to dine at Lana for quite some time now because I hear head chef Alex Wong has created something amazing mixing Asian inspiration with seasonal Australian seafood in a modern Italian setting! It was a bit hard to find the restaurant at first (on Level 1, so we ended up walking through downstairs Grana restaurant). It feels very comfortable and warm when you walk in though. I love the luxury brick loft-look of the space. It's a hybrid set menu - you choose your own entree and main (and optionally dessert), then you can add extra dishes a la carte to share. The menu is playful and imaginative, making use of many thoughtful flavour combinations I hadn't seen before. Maybe the best example of this was the oysters with white soy and mandarin. These came at an additional $9 each a la carte but were next level delicious. We ordered 4 and they came out with the other starters - mussels with sansho pepper, scallops with grape and caper, baby cucumbers with satay and cashew skordalia. The mandarin oyster dressing was familiar, yet intriguingly unfamiliar at the same time, as is the case with much of Lana's menu. There's a great mandarin cocktail too! It was definitely the seafood dishes that shown through on the night. The tuna crudo on a bed of insulata russa (Italian-style Russian salad) had a dressing so tasty, I had to lick up every last drop on the plate. I know you're not supposed to in a fine dining setting LOL! The murray cod was very tender, and came with an exceptional seaweed butter sauce. I did personally prefer it to the other main, the kurobuta pork. Besides the seafood, my other favourite thing about Lana was the sauces. It was apparent in the tuna crudo and the murray cod dishes, but I also loved the sauce in the saffron rigati with 'mapo' ragu. The slight Chinese flare you can taste in this pasta sauce is cunning. Another lick the plate example! The price does add up the more you adventure past the set menu, but stick to the seafood dishes and pastas and you'll have a sweet...