Wine Bank On View — Restaurant in Victoria

I don't often give negative reviews, but I really am left with no choice. the negative review is about the standard of the food served and in no way a reflection of the service and wait staff who were professional. If I had to use one word to describe the food standard it would be "PRETENTIOUS". Absolutely and utterly pretentious! I can only imagine the people who have given a good rating to this type of substandard effortlessly prepared food as also pretentious. Or easily impressed. Or maybe there are quite a lot of false positives? The food simply wasn't tasty at all. On first glance I was surprised to see the prices seemed a little on the cheap side. There must be a catch I thought? But on seeing the portion size when the food came out, I quickly realized I was incorrect in assuming it was cheap. Quite the opposite in fact. Portion size was incredibly small. Eagerly awaiting what I expected to be a succulent juicy grilled fish accompanied by a small delicious salad on the side, I was terribly disappointed to to see 3 or 4 extremely thinly sliced raw pieces of fish with a sprinkling of cracked pepper and a garnish of 3 segments of a mandarin and a couple of slices of what i think was fennel on the side. I should have paid more attention in French class and I may have noticed that French word for "raw" discreetly hidden in the menu description. Or was it Italian, I am not sure? I laughed it off and awaited the beef dish I'd also ordered. Shortly after the beef dish arrived and again the menu description failed to mention the beef would be raw as well. (As the menu described the meat as being rare but not uncooked. Deceiving! Another plate of very thinly sliced raw meat with a hint of garnish. Hmmm? Again disappointed and a feeling that someone really is taking the piss? I felt like the Chef was not really a chef at all and an imposter chef has somehow infiltrated a fancy restaurant and convinced his patrons that the food is amazing. Simply by using the very nice historical building as a backdrop, nice decor, surrounds and fancy French words in the menu to blind people from the fact that the food was absolute rubbish and simply not good value at all. The overly glamorized food and articulate wording in the menu made for an even bigger disappointment on the foods arrival. The Imposter chef is obviously deluded and most likely really believes there food is "Edgy" and tastes decent when in truth the food was lack luster and lacked any real effort in the composition or taste. Awful really! There was so little effort put into the composition and taste of the food. I couldn't eat it. It was simply awful and I feel the effort put into the taste was nothing short of lazy and uninspiring. I should mention there were some meals that were enjoyed at the table. The fried hot chips were well enjoyed by all. A small serve, but tasty none the less. Another person who dined with us enjoyed the cheese platter. While one of the children liked the lobster which was thinly spread in the tiniest of finger buns you can imagine. Accompanied by side serve of kettle chips which you guessed it, were lazily just taken from a packet of crisps. I am really left quite skeptical as to the validity of all these positive reviews. A lot of friends and a lot a Gmail accounts most likely to hide the substantial amount of honest reviews that reflect my own sentiments, which are seemingly hidden under all these questionable good reviews. In summary when I left the restaurant I felt as though I had been pickpocket of all my hard earned money and incredibly unsatisfied. I was still bloody hungry and needed to eat again when I had only just left. I felt and still...

Last night myself and my partner celebrated our 4th anniversary, we were looking for an upper-class dining experience, unfortunately, our usual 'go to spot' was closed for a private function, so we decided to give The Wine Bank on View a go.

I booked several days ahead via their online portal, and whilst doing so made sure to include a note requesting a nice, quiet table, somewhere to the side.

On the night we arrived about 15 minutes early for our booking, which wasn't an issue, we were shown to our table, which was pretty much in the centre of the dining room, to be absolutely fair the dining room is quite small and consists of about 8 tables at the most.

To start off the night, my partner ordered a Rose wine, I ordered the Port, my partner's glass arrived half full, while my glass, the same size, had half of what she's had, I don't know if this is the way Port is served, but both were around the exact same price, in my opinion, we should have received the same amount.

For the main course, I had the chicken curry, which I was told came in a mild sauce, my partner had the gnocchi.

Our food arrived at the table in a timely manner, my partner had no outstanding complaints with her dish, however I felt that my curry was probably overpriced for what I received, a small cup of preheated rice on the side of the plate and a portion of curry that was probably one of the single most bland dishes I have ever had, it just lacked any kind of differentiating taste, it was the exact same boring flavour over and over again, also, I felt that the curry was hotter than advertised, personally I would classify it as medium hot, definitely not mild.

All in all it was a semi-reasonable experience, nowhere near what we had envisioned, the establishment itself was very scenic, the staff seemed highly professional, the wine list was extensive as advertised, but my three main grips stand, I didn't feel we had got the type of table I had asked for, I didn't feel that I had got the amount of wine that I paid for, and I certainly don't feel justified in paying what I did for what was a sub-par Curry.

Q&A's

Would I give the place a second chance?: I would, but I probably wouldn't order the Port and I certainly wouldn't order the Curry again.

Would I recommend this place for fine dining?: I probably would, Yes, without going back a second or even third time I just couldn't say with any certainty that the experience we had was representative of what other people are going to experience, objectively, it's a nice place to eat, I just feel that the experience we had didn't meet our expectations.

Can I recommend an alternative for people looking for a fine dining experience?: I certainly can, Rocks on Rosalind, right over the road, $100, 5-course tasting plates with matched wine for each course, still the single best upper-class dining experience available in Bendigo in our opinion, and I'm afraid to say that the wine bank just hasn't changed...

My partner and I came here for a cute date night tonight as we came here a few years ago and it was fab. BUT - what a disaster it was tonight. Hands down the worst food wait we’ve ever experienced. I booked for dinner (Friday night) and we were seated at 7:30. When we ordered 10 mins later we were told there would be a 40 minute wait for food. That’s fine - not ideal, but we can deal with it. An hour and a half later we finally got our two entrees (a saganaki and three potato wrapped prawns). After waiting an extra 30 mins after the entrees, I enquired about our mains and we were told our mains would talk an extra 25 minutes again. So at this point it’s almost 2 hours for a main meal. We are BEYOND starving and annoyed. We’ve had a few drinks but after waiting the promised 25 minutes and enquiring about the meals again (it’s almost 10pm at this point) we are told that it’s going to be even longer. There was no saving the service at this point so we decided to leave without eating mains. The place waived our entrees and drinks and for that we are thankful. But the owner of the place was clearly dining/drinking next to us and we were disappointed that after a 2.5 hour wait for meals he couldn’t even come up to us and have a chat/apologise for the utterly unacceptable service. He clearly new we were not happy as well. The people next to us came AFTER us, got their meals, ate and left in the entire time we were there and we still hadn’t eaten anything past a bit of cheese and three prawns! Taking the time to apologise face to face in your own establishment when the service was dismal, is the difference between a lazy owner and a great owner. If that had happened we wouldn’t of even taken the time to leave a bad review. After reading the owners replies to people retelling their bad experiences however, the way we were treated makes so much...