The Promenade Cafe @ Park Hyatt Canberra

We stayed for a few days and experienced breakfast, lunch and dinner at the Promenade. The staff are well trained, efficient, friendly and courteous, and make you feel welcome. Breakfast: There is a note at the counter advising of possible delays after 8am, so we went early. A full range of items including smoked salmon and the best smoked ham; fresh whole fruit and cut melon etc; eggs cooked to order; delicious pastries, excellent brewed coffee and also cappucinos etc. Lunch: We only wanted a small lunch. No club sandwiches and BLT on the menu, but we had the most delicious salmon and tuna roll (with seaweed and a great dressing), tempura zucchini flowers, spicy grilled mushrooms and some veg- to share- just right. Dinner: the seafood buffet must be the best we have ever had outside Asia. Fresh oysters, prawns, blue swimmer crab, salmon gravalax , charcuterie, soup (spicy cauliflower and corn); salads. The hot dishes in the bain maries- were all delicious and moist. Many buffets serve roast meats that are dry and tough, but the roast beef here was perfect- not rare, but still moist and tender. Desserts included bread and butter pudding, fruit panacotta and big range of little cakes etc to try. A great offering for $90pp. This restaurant is great- good food, no fuss, competent staff. Well done.

The staff were friendly but there were significant (unacceptable) delays in service. The shared bread basket (ordered as an entre) was not served until the main meal arrived. One main course was not accompanied by the side dish ordered and after finally attracting the attention of the wait staff, it arrived after the main meal had been consumed. Replenishment of wine glasses from the purchased bottle was equally slow. Despite the very limited dessert menu, it took some 25 minutes to reach the table after placing the order. In all, this restaurant has a very limited over priced menu and falls well short of what might be expected of a so called five star restaurant,

When we booked for dinner we had a choice of either 6pm or 7.30pm as there was a big group booked for 6.30pm. We chose 6pm and arrived on time, ordered a drink then placed our order before 6.30pm. The entree arrived which was very good, then the wait started, 1.5 hours later and much complaing to the staff we finally got our main course which was pretty disappointing, my steak which I ordered medium well was rare and my wife’s pork was mainly unrendered fat,a total disappointment. The large table were all served their main meal before we got ours, they must have been SPECIAL PEOPLE, not just an average couple like us. Anyway we were not charged for our meal and another table near us who also had the same problem weren’t charged either, but too little too late, just such bad service by the kitchen. The wait staff were very good and apologetic but they had no control over what happened. A very average meal with terrible service from the kitchen.

We went with 2 families at 9am as a treat for the kids finishing a really tough school year. We were hoping to surprise them with some 'wow ' factor. Really lovely food with lots of choices. Dishes were super tasty, the only thing that was out of stock was the scrambled eggs and they were filled up before we reached them at the end of the hot food line. The 10 y/o amongst us exclaimed it was the best day of their life! I 'm already planning my next visit. This time I 'll skip my piece of toast in hope that I have room for a pastry!

Dined here a number of times and always enjoyed it. Had a small dinner party for the Seafood buffet at the Promenade Cafe on Sep ‘22. Ambiance is always nice staff are all service oriented. No problems there. Unfortunately, food fell below the standard one would expect from a Hyatt name. Prawns were good. Hot items on buffet were pretty standard. Roast was ok but presentation was unappealing. Overall, food was not worth $95 (coffe/tea not included) . Definitely not. Is Hyatt trying to make more profit from losses during covid? Don’t waste your money if you’re expecting good food but if you only want to enjoy the ambience , then go ahead. Otherwise, not worth the visit.