Verandah Restaurant - Pokolbin

We did have a great night here with friends but the food was a little underwhelming. The tapas style is a good concept but for what you pay the food was lacking a little flavour and was quite bland. Great atmosphere and venue. If the food was at the level of the venue I would have given it a perfect score.

I visited the Verandah Restaurant with a group of friends recently. There were 10 of us so we had to have the set menu. The food was OK but nothing special. It could have done with some seasoning. The views were lovely and the service was good. The cost of the meal was reasonable. I did feel sorry for the vegetarian in our group. She seemed to get what we had but minus the meat. In other words, a few sad little veges on a plate. I won't return to this restaurant.

Visited for dinner recently with my husband. The service was great and the staff all lovely and attentive, but found the food to be really hit and miss. Many of the dishes were also served on very little dishes and plates that really made it difficult to eat. The highlights were the beef cheeks and the gnocchi. Big pass on the squid, and the fish. The squid was honestly the worst I've ever had. I'm used to a beautiful light batter but it was hard to determine whether there was any squid meat on my plate or whether it was the deepest of deep fried batter only. The fish was waaaaaay too salty. Very expensive so a real shame.

We came in for an afternoon lunch & wine tasting. The lady serving us in the cellar was quite nice yet a little disinterested and quickly rattled off information. Then we went upstairs for lunch, where we were met by a brunette lady who seemed very agitated. It wasn't busy at all yet we felt like a hassle. When ordering, my boyfriend was barked at after he flicked through the menu looking for drinks, he accidentally flicked past the page, and he was very rudely told "yep all drinks are STILL going to be on the front.. like I just said", which was completely unnecessary and made us very uncomfortable. We ordered the 6 course tasting menu 1 which was absolutely beautiful, served very promptly, and great value at 49 dollars a head. The lady continued to serve our dishes with little smile and little response even though we thanked her a number of times. She simply stated the name of the dish plonked it down, took the last plate and quickly left. At no point were we asked how anything was, and we weren't offered another drink until our 6th course after finishing the last one during the first. It made for an awkward and uncomfortable dining experience. She cheered up a bit at the end and was nice as we left, so we walked away very confused. It was a beautiful winters day but sadly we left feeling deflated and a bit offended.

Great service, brilliant setting, gorgeous food. Loved it all. Sat on the verandah overlooking the neighbouring estates. Inside was a bit too warm and stuffy, outside was perfect.