Promenade Restaurant, The

3.8 Below Average

Food  5      Ambience  8      Service  1      Value  1     

A good thing the company of my girlfriends was so wonderful.

The service was terrible - my friend had to get up 3 times over the course of our high tea to refill our own water glasses. We had to chase to get anything topped up or to order more tea. I don't believe the restaurant was short-staffed; I believe the staff were disinterested in excellence in customer service, preferring to wait to be asked then pre-empt any service opportunities.

The High Tea - pots of tea - we were only offered English Breakfast and it came with tea bags. This is not a very traditional or well executed HT or there would be a few tea options and it would be loose leaf and God forbid an actual loose tea menu.

The food was good. The scones were great and the sweet pastries were lovely. The savoury pastries were a flavourless let down as were the sandwiches.

The HT cost us $33 for the middle-tiered option and I'd say it was probably worth $18 at best. Our empty plates sat in front of us for a full hour before we finally asked for them to be taken away.

The Stamford Grand (sadly) was better than the Stamford Plaza HT however both are eclipsed by the excellent HT offered by the Intercontinental and also Norwood's Artstyle Gallery.

This High Tea in no way at all compares to High Tea's offered at Melbourne's Hotel Windsor (where you would happily pay the asking price of $79) or Melbourne's Hopetoun Tea Rooms. I have also experienced HT's all over the world and again, this is not a HT, more an overpriced afternoon tea.

Such a shame, such a wasted opportunity for a clever business idea in Adelaide. Considering the venue has 2 HT sittings I would really love to see the HT receive a complete overhaul of quality food, trained service staff, an appropriate boutique tea menu - and charge double!! I'm sure that they would still pack the patrons in and more would be happy to be repeat visitors.

Also - the metal chairs in the atrium area are absolutely wretched for anyone's back for anything more than 10 minutes. Horrible chairs.

If they ever decide to improve themselves I welcome an invitation to try them again but until then I will tell everyone to save their money and go elsewhere instead. Whipped Cafe at Semaphore do a much better High Tea even though it is more of a cafe atmosphere.

Aug 10, 2011 

5.8 Average

Food  7      Ambience  7      Service  6      Value  3     

We ate here, food was nice, however, they were a bit slow on the service. Biggest gripe though was the seafood platter and the fact that the crab was Most Certainly Undersized. Blue swimmer crabs are supposed to be at least 11 cms and the crab they served us would have been lucky to be 6 cms!

Dec 29, 2010 

7.8 Recommended

Food  7      Ambience  9      Service  6      Value  9     

We haven't ever dined here of an evening but in terms of the breakfast buffet it really is a hit or miss affair. We have savoured the breakfast buffet many times over the years after staying in the hotel with the most recent being Nov 2009. Many times the service is good and the food very well stocked and presented with plenty of choice, in fact one of the best in Australia.

Sadly, on this most recent occasion the experience was not so good. The service was nothing short of appalling, where we repeatedly had to chase staff down for tea/coffee refills and a lack of clean cutlery etc. This happens sometimes on a Sunday morning after a wedding at the hotel but you’d think they’d know this by now and put extra staff on to cope, or do they just not care?

The food this time was quite okay, although not quite as good as some other times, apart from the tea which looked and tasted as if brewed using dirty dish water. Still, the lovely serene view overlooking the Glenelg beach and jetty almost makes up for it, but not quite. Fingers crossed that we strike a good one on our next visit, which we surely will give the brilliant $20 a head price tag if staying at the hotel.

Nov 15, 2009