Name: Vino’s Restaurant

Location: Upper Level, Eagle Street Pier, Brisbane, Qld

Website: http://www.vinos.com.au

Date visited: 23 Feb 08

Cost: Worth it!

Our Rating: 4 cracked peppers

Ms OE says:

We were looking for a nice restaurant to celebrate our anniversary and in Vino’s we found it – fine dining, good prompt service, great views and excellent food. We sampled an entree each followed by a shared pizza. I had the scallops – interesting bursts of flavour. OE enjoyed a toffee coated walnut salad. The Wagyu steak pizza was very good. We left pleasantly surprised by the price. Another one to go back to.

Mr OE says:

While this place is not the cheapest eat, its fine dining, and thats what you get. The surrounds are inviting – Eagle Street is somewhat concrete, but inside Vinos its quite human. It really does have a wine bar atmosphere too, which nicely complements the dining, and I’d like to come here sometime just for that. The view, ah yes, that is spectacular, and Brisbane is a pretty city as the sun sets and the lights come out. The wine list is extensive, expensive, and good, and the food is exotic, beautifully presented, and prepared just so. Probably the first time I have had a pizza that WAS a fine dining experience, the wagu beef just melted. And I was impressed by the caramalised walnut, goat cheese and rocket salad, so much that I’m going to steal it for my own kitchen. Popular – people were being turned away at peak time (7.30pm), and justly so. Thumbs up I say.

Name: Mario at the dining room

Location: 49 Gerler Road, Hendra, Qld

Website: http://www.thediningroom.com.au

Date visited: Jan 08

Cost: Average – fine dining prices

Our Rating: 2 1/2 cracked peppers

Mr OE says:

This is a restaurant I wanted to give a good review to – but I can’t. I really can’t. Really nice pasta…nice setting, but a place that brags so much about being the best Italian restaurant, its got to have more. And more service is what was lacking. We were left for too long…before ordering, while waiting, after courses, we would have had dessert, but after having waited for what felt like two hours (with very little service in between) to get a entree and then an entree sized mains, well. Also, the bruschetta was far too oily, and it was not the best olive oil, either.

Ms OE says:

We decided to try Mario at the Dining Room after driving past on several occasions and noting it’s large banner proclaiming it to be Brisbane’s best Italian restaurant. We made a booking one rainy friday evening and arrived for a 7.30pm sitting. We left feeling vaguely…disappointed. The pasta WAS excellent – by far the best we’ve had, and that alone probably warrants the Best Italian claim. The restaurant too was nicely presented – a refurbished home in Hendra, it’s stylish and charming. We also noticed the chef himself coming out to serve customers their lambshanks – a nice touch.

So it’s a shame to say that we didn’t enjoy our experience. Although the pasta was excellent our entrees of bread and bruchetta were far too oily – drenched in olive oil. The service was slow and inattentive – fine if you want to sit and chat with friends, sup wine and don’t have anything to go to afterwards, but hey, I’ve had a lot of dinners with Mr OE and since I’m tee-totalling at the moment, sitting around waiting for service/food/menus began to wear thin. The restaurant wasn’t completely full, yet the wait seemed to get longer and longer – a wait to have our orders taken, almost 8 before our entree (simple crusty bread and bruschetta) arrived, nearly 8.30 before our main course appeared on our table. After eating we waited for service – debating whether to risk another long wait by ordering dessert – and finally collared the drinks waitress who asked if we wanted a second drink – no, but the dessert menu would be appropriate. We waited, but when ten minutes had passed and we saw our waitress approach a different table with dessert menus we decided we’d been forgotten and made our way to the register to pay the bill.

Which would all have been forgivable given the delicious pasta had the restaurant not boasted on its marque, its website and in the various framed reviews gracing its walls – not to mention it’s business card and flyers – to be The Best Italian restaurant in Brisbane. Sadly we beg to differ. The best pasta maybe, but we’ve had better service and, as a result, a more pleasant experience at Campo Dei Fiori, another local Italian restaurant with quite acceptable food. The setting, the prices and the website at Mario at the Dining Room all implied fine dining but the service and our entree didn’t match the promise. We tried to think of a situation where we would be likely to go back but unfortunately our desire for excellent pasta isn’t enough to tempt.