Gigi A.
Yelp
Just got home after a terrible dining experience here. Do not go to this restaurant.
I went as the guest of a friend who is a chef, and had told me that the place had been redone and the food was good..
We ordered the oysters, and when they arrived they weren't chilled and had no ichor left in them, and tasted kind of tired. Not the best oysters i've had, but not too bad. Forgivable, if the rest of the meal was good.
My friend had the bugs, which were great.
I ordered a scotch fillet steak, which cost $44. For $44 I would expect a steak that pretty much melts in my mouth. This one was literally half gristle, and I kept ploughing through it, thinking that I'd get through the gristle in a minute and there'd be a big yummy chunk of steak. Even the bits I did swallow were chewy and stringy. I left the last quarter of the steak and the plate was covered with masticated and spat out gristle. It was a terrible steak.
All well and good, I said to the waiter I was disappointed and the manager chick came over and said something along the lines of, 'I'm sorry you didn't enjoy your steak.'
I said, 'Did you see it? Half of it was chewed and spat out on the plate.'
'Yes, I saw it. I'm sorry you didn't enjoy it,' she said again, like it was fine and there was something wrong with me.
Not 'I'm sorry we served you a sub standard steak.' She offered dessert or wine, but I don't drink and I can't eat any of the desserts as I don't eat sugar, so I said no to both.
No further move was made to address the fact that I was an unhappy customer. I said to my friend, 'Let's get out of here.'
We went to pay the bill, and discovered they hadn't taken any money off for the steak. They had, however, taken off our mineral water off the bill. What a huge concession. The water we drank with our sub standard meal.
My friend said, 'We're not paying for the steak', and the female manager argued with us, saying that I'd eaten it and should pay for it.
'Oh wow,' I said. 'Really? Half of it was chewed up gristle on the plate and a quarter of it was left.'
My friend said 'I'm a chef. I would never have served that. She didn't eat it, she spat it out. It was all over the plate.'
The manager said, 'It's really not my call. I've talked to the owner and this comes from him.'
'Get him here, please.'
The manager disappeared for a while, then came back, saying, 'I've fixed that up, there's no charge for the steak'. She took the steak off AND PUT THE MINERAL WATER BACK ON THE BILL. What the actual f***?
The owner came up and basically harangued me for eating as much of it as I did. 'Why didn't you send it back right at the beginning?'
'I kept thinking it would be the end of the gristle and I'd get to the steak, so I just ploughed through it.' He went on and on, like I was just trying to scam them or something, but a third of the steak was gristle and I left a quarter so I actually ate bugger all.
This was the owner of the place. I am an unhappy customer and in front of the whole restaurant and to the delight of the diners who love a show, and the discomfort of those who just want a peaceful meal, he is blaming me for his shitty steak.
'We offered you dessert but you said no,' he said, still obviously pissed off.
'I can't eat the dessert.'
'Oh.'
And one more time he came in with another swipe about it would have been better if I hadn't eaten it. Unbelievable.
I am a local here at Bondi, and I am never going back to the Tratt. My friend is a local chef and she is never going back. We are both going to tell the people we know not to go there.
How hard is it, if a customer isn't happy, to just say 'I'm really sorry, what can we do?' I have never been so embarrassed to make a complaint. I wasn't rude, I wasn't nasty, just showed them the plate covered with gristle. It's irrelevant whether or not I ate it. They served a terrible steak and then made it my fault when I brought it to their attention.
Goodbye Bondi Trattoria.