Jessica H.
Yelp
Hmm. I was pretty disappointed in Supernormal and I think it had way more to do with the experience and the cost of everything than the taste of the food itself.
The main thing -- the ridiculous wait time. We arrived at 7pm on a Saturday night and were told in no uncertain terms we'd be seated after 9:15pm at the earliest. So a two hour and fifteen minute wait. That's ludicrous, even for a Saturday night in the CBD.
Supernormal is a popular, trending Melbourne restaurant, and people in Melbourne jump on the "trendy" bandwagon like no other Australian city. Which means long queues at trendy restaurants that don't take bookings, and restaurant managers/workers who don't give a crap if that annoys you because they're smugly confident someone else will be willing to take your place. So you sigh and suck it up and wait the 2+ hours on an uncomfortable chair with people constantly bumping into you as they walk past and you sip on an overpriced wine or beer, trying desperately to make it last the full wait time so you don't get wasted on alcohol on an empty stomach before you're even seated.
Australians, don't put up with it!! If we all voiced our objections to the ludicrous "no bookings for small groups" policy at popular restaurants and voted with our feet out the door, we'd all have a much nicer dining scene in Melbourne. Restaurants can give up the reserved table if you don't turn up within 5 minutes and turnover will still be high and they'll still make their money. I dunno, I just feel like Australians are willing to put up with a lot of poor customer service that people in other countries aren't. The food here is not amazing enough to put up with a 2+ hour wait due to a no bookings policy.
So yeah, rant over, that was my main gripe. Also, the place was loud and didn't feel "special" -- for the price we paid and the special occasion (it was a friend's birthday), the atmosphere was too crowded, cramped, dark, and noisy.
Service was also poor. We had two different waiters due to a shift change halfway through our meal, and there was a lot of confusion about what we ordered. THREE TIMES, the wrong food was brought to our table. Three times! For the amount we paid per head ($80+), it's pretty inexcusable for these kinds of mistakes to keep happening. I wouldn't care so much except that it's a waste of food when you start touching the dish assuming it's yours and then it can't be served to the other table.
On to the food. We were a group of four and ordered a bunch of stuff to share, which is par for the course here. Two of us are vegan and one vegetarian-leaning and one meat-eating, so we got a mix of things. Supernormal is vegan-friendly and the waiter knew right off the bat what we could and couldn't eat, which was awesome.
We got:
- Purple sprouting broccoli, smoked potato, miso and furikake (mostly because we enjoyed saying "furikake")
- Vegetable dumplings (2 servings, 12 pieces)
- New England lobster rolls (1 for the meat-eater, 3 with tofu for the rest of us)
- Some fish thing for the meat-eater, some tofu thing for us
- Sauteed greens in a black bean sauce
- Steamed rice
- House sake
The flavours were pretty awesome, except for the vegetable dumplings, which were bland a.f. I could've ordered some veggie dumplings anywhere in Chinatown for a fraction of the cost and they would've tasted better.
The "lobster rolls" (ours were identical to the meat-eater's, just with marinated tofu on the inside) were heavenly. This is Supernormal's signature dish and even if you're not a tofu fan, don't worry -- this is amazingly delicious. If I went back I would probably just order like 4 of these and some rice and call it a day, lol. Really really good.
The purple sprouting broccoli and potato was nice, and the greens were OK. The sake was nice and went down nice and smooth.
All in all, the food was nice and the flavours were definitely "gourmand," but I would never go back again and pay $80+ per head for what I ate, ESPECIALLY given the almost 2.5-hour wait and the crappy service and the food screw-ups three times.