The Deanery Wine Reserve

Given it's location, we expected The Deanery to be buzzing when we arrived at 7:30 on a Saturday night. However it was almost empty which set off a few alarm bells. The service was fabulous and we chatted to the semmelier extensively throughout the meal, lovely man!! In addition, the rest of the restaurant staff were very polite and accommodating. However, the food! Although the prices reflect the quality found in many other top
Melbourne restaurants, the blend of flavours were too contrasting and did nothing to make the meals outstanding. The lamb tartare was nice but accompanied by these little side additives which were strange and not designed to be eaten with raw meat. Similarly, the scallops were tasty but did not need to be accompanied by "violet foam", a sweet, blueberry whipped egg white?? The mains were equally over complicated with my beautifully moist mulloway fillett sitting on a bed of "bisque", a heavy brown sauce with corn kernels, radish, crab meat and who knows what else. We can certainly see what the chef is trying to do but perhaps he is trying far too hard to be inventive. We would recommend it just for the experience of the wine list alone. It's worth a peek.