Smokehouse 81 — Restaurant in Victoria

Was really looking forward to sampling the food at Smokehouse 81. Booked it for my birthday.

The place looks great, the staff are extremely helpful, and the presentation of the food is excellent.

My wife is low FODMAP, and they really helped with working thru what had garlic and onion in it, and even doing special orders without them in it.

For starters we ordered the squid, wings and baked Camembert. They brought us 2 lots of wings - one without any garlic or onion on the wings, and one with. The wings were delicious. The Camembert was okay, I think I'm just not a fan of baked cheese! Unfortunately the squid never arrived.

For mains we had the brisket and pork ribs, with fried onion, smashed potato and fries as the 3 sides.

The sides were excellent - loved the onion, the potato and the fries.

Unfortunately the brisket is really poor, bordering on inedible. Very dry, not much fat, very lean. Didn't detect a lot of flavour on the smoke bark. It really disappointed me as I was really looking forward to the brisket.

My wife had the pork ribs, she found them very fatty, but I didn't mind them being fatty (as fat is flavour).

Overall, the food was nice, except the main event, the brisket, which was disappointing. Not sure if it was just a bad batch that nite, or if they prefer lean, drier brisket over the fatty,...

I was heading to Lakes Entrance and stop by this smokehouse that had amazing ratings. But, guess what? Google Maps took me to Latrobe Street instead of Prince Street. Anyway, I finally made it there around 12:40, only to be told that they had run out of beef ribs and duck legs. Bummer! I settled for the beef brisket with onion rings instead.

They served the dish with a dinner knife instead of a steak knife. I guess they must be pretty confident in their meat being super tender. Surprisingly, there were loads of sauces piled on top of the three slices of smoked beef brisket. Personally, I think they went a bit overboard with the sauce, as it kind of overwhelmed the flavor. Some parts of the brisket were so tough that even the dinner knife couldn't handle them. I ended up unintentionally slicing through the baking paper underneath the meat. Not cool! Some parts of the brisket were dry. Not exactly what I was hoping for in a highly rated smokehouse. They charge $6 for a pot of post-mixed Coke. That's a rip-off! I would've gladly paid $6 for a can or a glass bottle of Coke instead of this...

What an amazing establishment. The service was wonderful, all of the waiters and waitresses were really friendly and quick. Drinks were served super fast after we ordered them. Everything from the entree through to the mains was served fast after ordering aswell. Food was absolutely to die for, everything was plated and presented to perfection. Flavours where off the charts!!

The aesthetic of the whole restaurant is really well thought out and put together from the table and chair combinations to the little pieces of driftwood log used for the table numbers. Barn doors on the toilets and an open kitchen!!

Overall it was just a really great experience, we will definitely be back for more as soon as possible! All the staff involved in the business should be really proud of what's being...