Headlands Hotel Brasserie & Bar Austinmer — Restaurant in Wollongong City Council

Restaurant and bar with ocean views, expansive indoor and outdoor dining areas, adjacent to the beach. It looked like an exciting place to visit for lunch, being only an hour's drive from Sydney, but as we attended on a sunny and warm weekday between Christmas and New Year, it was crowded with barely a free table in sight. No parking was available in the undercover hotel car park, and with the beach being so busy there was no parking available in surrounding streets so we parked over a few blocks away on the other side of the main road. . Upon placing our lunch order at the counter around 12.30pm, we were advised the wait would be an hour. The staff were very friendly, and coped well under the pressure of impatient patrons asking if their meals were ready yet. The wait for our dishes did indeed take an hour, and while it didn't matter that my pumpkin salad was cold, my friend commented on how his risotto was lukewarm, and far from the expected piping hot. My salad was nice, with a creamy white sauce, croutons and crisp lettuce, but definitely not the best I've ever had. There was a pleasant seaside atmosphere, but the reverberation from the alfresco dining area made it somewhat unpleasantly loud. Although it was a full house today, I've heard the restaurant is practically empty for lunch during the year outside of holiday season. It's a nice place to visit, if not for being packed and long wait time for meals on...

I don't even know where to begin. We were passing by and decided to stop because of the unobstructed view, but unfortunately, we waited 45 minutes for our food. When we asked the waitress if was everything alright with our order she told us they were plating it, but this process took another 10 minutes. When the food arrived, they didn't bring any cutlery for my daughter even after we ordered three different dishes. Then, when the food arrived, we asked the waitress why took so long and she just stared at us, no answer. Thinking about it, I don't blame her because it's no one's fault for not knowing better. Now I just think is funny, I'm just giving feedback to anyone traveling who will only waste time at this place. Bad food, bad service. The Coca-Cola was okay and the guy in the bar very polite too. But the food and the service overall not worth the money at all. Is good for the retired people they go for lunch and by the time they get the food they are dining. But even worst for the wait was a lack of professionalism from the staff, when something goes wrong they need to tell the customers what’s going on, it’s the minimum of...

Came here on a public holiday and dropped by for lunch, didn’t stay at the hotel FYI.

To begin, the scenery is absolutely breathtaking, overseeing the beautiful calming waves of the ocean, settled on a lovely grassy field and surrounded by laughter and chit chat, the overall environment of the restaurant was fun and relaxing. The staff seem quite nice and the restaurant is absolutely huge!! Some dishes were off the menu for some reason (ones that look really good like the chicken schnitzel and clams 😔)

However, being such a large restaurant, the wait times are quite long. Over an hour for steak and fries and salmon! Kids meals came first, lucky because they were starving and the burgers are nice. The steak and fries are alright, nothing really special and the salmon is at best; interesting. The chimichurri was so flavorful like lemon and the Tuscan vegetables are quite good too, though is salmon was extremely soft and literally collapsed when trying to cut into it and quite bland itself.

The cakes are good too and so is the ice cream for dessert 🍦

Overall, a decent place but falls short from its spectacular...