Corrie Z.
Yelp
This will start with a rant:
For some reason, when arriving at a restaurant we are always put at the worst table. This happened upon arrival at Bacchus, so we did ask to be moved (the original table = squishy with no room and poor lighting, behind a huge structure/potplant/somethingorothericannotremember)... At first they were resistant, saying all 2 person tables were booked.
This confuses me, because those people hadn't arrived as yet and have no clue as to what table they were getting
a) we had ALSO booked, probably about 3-4 weeks prior actually
b) last time I checked, when booking a table at a restaurant, you dont click which table you prefer like a seating plan on an aircraft. ie tables shouldn't be SO preallocated that a change is impossible.
Rant over, they did end up changing us to another table, but I felt that they weren't particularly happy about doing so.
We were asked three times by three separate waitstaff if we wanted water, and so the sparkling water we requested didn't actually come to us for about 15-20 minutes.
The sommelier was clearly on a mission to sell a particular wine, we went with it, even though we thought we were being sucked in, but the wine was actually really amazing.
The food: beautiful presentation. Each dish is supposedly matched to a particular olive oil, and in my entree/mains I could definitely detect that particular oil, so this was quite interesting. I had beef carpaccio for entree, and chicken ballotine for main, which were both excellent, my husbands dishes of red claw ravioli and duck breast were both excellent as well.
Desserts err interestingly on the savoury side, eg goats cheese, fennel, basil are listed ingredients.
I had apricot souffle that was just eggy tasting with very little apricot flavouring, but the lemon myrtle sorbet was delicious.
One interesting thing to note: on their website, they have listed a "Grill" section with sides, however this was completely missing from the menu... not sure why, should have asked.
Overall, I am erring on the side of liking this place, teething problems/new venue probably explain the lapse in service, which did become friendlier and more improved as the evening went on. We definitely loved the food, desserts not as much though.