111 Spring Street at the Hotel Windsor, Melbourne

The chicken main: elegant plating at its finest

I decided to treat my father to a nice dinner as a Christmas present and made the mistake of letting him choose the venue. Of all things he picked 111 Spring Street (the in house restaurant at the Windsor Hotel – the home away from home for Victoria’s pollies). After an utterly disappointing and horrendously expensive meal, it has become my pick for the best way to waste $200 in Melbourne.

This place would have been R’s worst nightmare and was probably the worst nice meal I have had in my life.

Entrée

For entrée I ordered the Miso Cured Salmon with kolrabi, puffed rice and a buttermilk sauce. It tasted of… absolutely nothing. Like, seriously, there was perhaps the slightest hint of umami and bitterness from the kolrabi, but it was like they had taken the time and effort to expunge every ounce of flavour from the dish. The texture of the fish was fine and indeed all the ingredients were of the highest quality, its just that the chefs seemed to apply all their expertise to making sure it was bland bland bland.

My dad got the Flinders Island Wallaby (complete with chlorophyll! Mmmm!) and said that it was ‘lovely’ but he is absolutely the target audience – very old, very white. For my thoughts on the mouthful I tried, see the Miso Cured Salmon above.

Mains

Chicken, one of my favourite meats. Even when it’s bad, its normally reasonably tasty. Thank you 111 Spring Street for being an exception to this rule! For my main I got the Roasted Organic Chicken with Avruga Caviar, Macadamia Crème, Crispy Kale and Kelp Liqueur. That is the dish pictured above and it just… well look at it really. That leafy mass all clumped together, that was fried sage. Just there. Like a vegetable (Pro tip, 111: sage is not a vegetable!). The caviar was nice, like really actually quite nice, flavourful stuff, but muddled in with 3 competing flavours in this wet, runny, macadamia excretion. It didn’t work at all. Also the chicken was bland. Nicely cooked, and good meat, but again WHERE IS THE FLAVOUR, 111?

Dad got the Slow Cooked Lamb Saddle with a range of marginally identifiable things as sides. It was OK, just barely OK. It was also 38 dollars. The same price as the frankly fantastic lamb dish I had at Cutler & Co the week before. Groan.

Dessert

I shouldn’t have gotten dessert. It wasn’t like we were on a set menu, and we were already having such a fantastic meal by that point. But Dad wanted the third course, and hey, it was Christmas!

I had the White Chocolate Mousse with Lemongrass Curd, Macadamia Polovrone and Lemon Balm. The sweet bits were barely flavoured. The sour bits were overwhelmingly bitter. The Polovrone was, like eating mouthfuls of macadamia flavoured talcum powder. Seriously, I think the pastry chef personally hated me or something.

Dad had this plum and chocolate thing – I tasted it and can confirm that it technically met the definition of a dessert.

Service

The service was OK, the wait staff were friendly and we got exactly what we ordered (even though none of it was nice). The 1.5% card surcharge was quite frankly ridiculous though, and I didn't even use a credit card! It left nearly as bad a taste in my mouth as the dishes.

Conclusion
GG 111 Spring Street, you have finally beaten Attica for the title of ‘M’s least favourite restaurant’.

Even with all the vitriol above I cant begin to describe how… sad the whole experience made me feel. You would have more fun eating in a palliative care ward.

Seriously, this place is like, the dining equivalent of a reasonably well made fake watch or handbag. It approximates something good, people clearly tried hard in its creation, but it isn’t – and will never be – anything even marginally desirable.

Avoid like the plague.