Suggestion Restaurants in Thredbo Village 2022
- Thread starter sastrugi
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NSW restaurant licensees don't allow for that sort of innovation. You can only serve diners alcohol.Ok so against my best instincts and with trepidation amongst all my family members, we revisited Sante again tonight. Why? Dinner with a friend and family and it was the only available early booking. I didn’t want to do it, but they kind of insisted.
Eek.
But, I have to give them credit, it was good. Verging on very good. Nothing went pear shaped. The service was good. The food arrived promptly and was quite nice. I played it safe and got a (still it’s fair to say wildly overpriced) steak, but it was cooked decently. The chips were actually very good - some of the best I’ve had in a while. The sticky date pudding was also nice, as was the wine.
After that visit, while it wouldn’t be my first choice of restaurant, I’d definitely go again. Credit to them, they’ve vastly improved from the Faulty Towers effort from opening weekend.
Ha! That's good to hear. We ate at Sante on opening weekend and it was clear they were in a fairly intensive 'training and learning' phase with their staff. They were nice enough to admit it wasn't perfect, they acknowledged the staff were very inexperienced, and they promised 'we'll get steadily better'. Staffing is nuts any year, but it's obvious this year is particularly tough. Seems they were right, which is great to hear.
Just starting to book restaurants for mid-August, so we'll add Sante to the list of options.
Thanks for the review.
We ate downstairs Berntis last night. It was expensive ($47 for prawn pasta) but it was delicious and the service was excellent .
Lunch at Crackenback Farm today was sensational. Every dish that everyone ate was fab. I shared oysters and the witlof/ blue Cheese / walnuts / cauli salad with a friend, and loved the wagyu corned beef main. The ODonnels playing Simon & Garfunkel was brilliant… lots of restaurant participation with kitchen utensil percussion, singing and table dancing. Nice to be home Quiet night in the lodge tonight. Looking forward to a day on the hill tomorrow ⛷
Yes it was a fun lunch! The O’Donnells are always great at Crackenback Farm. We were very tame compared to at least one table! We didn’t raid the kitchen.
Bahahaha
Let me guess…
Loudest table wasssss…
We must do a Crackenback farm lunch, haven’t in years!Its even on FB.
Just a heads up…. If your coming to Thredbo for more than 3 nights I would highly suggest bring dinners from home, restaurants in the village are either closed, or takeaway only (with waits over an hour) or booked out!!!
Lunch at Kareela is absolutely delicious. A friend and I shared a tuna salad and a prawn salad (today’s special), a bottle of wine and a round of schnapps with our wonderful extended table.
Had an early dinner at home last night and a dessert and sticky at Denman afterwards. There are good options for mix n matching meals at home and out without fretting about restaurant bookings.
Well since all the restaurants are booked out looks like I’ll open up a van life takeaway
Anyway
Best h/c on the mountain? My pick so far this season has been eagles nest.
LBS#2* and clan had lunch again at Kareela today. They had the Lamb last week and didn't tell me what today, just that it was v good...
DD* and I get there on Friday but haven't been able to book a table. I'm hoping we can get a walk in at least one day but we're only there for the long weekend...
*LBS - Lucky Bastard Son
*DD - Dear Daughter
We dined in Cascades last night. Was pretty good. Slightly different options this year due to staff like everyone else.
You could order either a 2 course or 3 course meal from the menu for $69 or $79.
We both only wanted entree and main but with the serving sizes it would have worked if we shared an entree and dessert.
My lamb kofta balls were excellent and Dear Daughter's tuna tartare good. I paid an extra $20 for the steak option (that was the only dish with a surcharge) and it was good. Slightly more medium than medium rare as ordered but not overly.
DD's grilled salmon was very good.
Tonight it's TBar so we'll see how that goes.Last edited:
TBar was really very nice. Definite upgrade on Cascades. We had the olives for entree. Recommended by the waiter and a winner. House marinade and good mix of olive varieties.
DD had the "young at heart" fish chips and salad. She really liked it and was more than enough. I thought the string fries were really good...
I had the chilli prawn linguine. Delish. Normally I wouldn't have a cheesy sauce with seafood but it worked really well.
Then we shared a sticky date pudding and ice cream for dessert. Very yummy.
All round thumbs up.Had dinner this evening at Crackenback Farm. That’s more like it! Excellent food. Excellent service. Excellent wine. This is the best food I’ve had in the mountains in quite a few years.
Not a bad word to write.
Do yourself a favour…
We did Sante for dinner tonight. Yes they are suffering the staff shortage but the food was very good. Very tough looking after the loud groups but they managed to keep us serviced as needed.
We couldn't fit in a dessert. The shared entree and main each was more than enough.
Lime prawns to start were great.
My Wagyu rump was delicious and DD's fish and prawn dish was just what she was after.
Deserved the tipMultiple comments from guests ...
"Cannot book a restaurant anywhere".
More restaurants would be an obvious solution in this very unpremium environment.
I was a bit weirded out at people booking restaurants for their holiday months in advance.
Going on a holiday for a premium experience and eating pizza or at the pub for a week is... unpremium.
Crazy really having to book restaurants in advance of holiday, perhaps not enough restaurants supports the mad pricing for what is mid range food.
From my experience last week, I think the problem with the booking systems is the restaurants insisting on using online booking systems. Unless they ask for a CC deposit, the system is being rorted and everybody is missing out. I saw empty tables in Kareela and Denman, yet had no issues walking in and finding a table at Central Road where you don’t have to book online. My group were making bookings on the fly for Kareela every day, yet the online booking system says nothing available all season.
And then my issue in June where I couldn’t book T Bar online or in person - ‘booked out’ yet my lodge managers walked in and had a beautiful meal.
Ditch the rigid online systems and get back to hospitality, or enforce CC deposits. I understand harder with Covid, but there’s enough people around to fill every restaurant every service at this time of year.
BTW, yes Crackenback Farm is a national treasure. Jodie had Red’s in the village in the 90s before it became Sante. Red’s was also amazing. No one does simple home cooked food better than Jodie, and no one knows their wine better either.We haven’t been eating out a lot but if you’re prepared to go outside of the 6pm, 6.30 or 7pm start there is quite a few options last minute. If you’re flexible about where.
I was one of the "weird" people that booked restaurants months out because I don't like to spend my holiday fretting about if we can get a table or not, it's more relaxing to me that way, and can confirm that most places took CC details, with T&C's that said in event of no show or cancellation within 24hrs there would be $30-$50 charges per person.
In other news I'll be there from Fri, dining at Denman, Kareela (T2B champage breakfast and a lunch), Candlelight, Cascades, Ullr Mex and some of the non bookable on mountain options, looking forward to posting reports here
I remember you saying! But with pent up demand after two years of lockdowns, staff shortages and legacy Covid restrictions I thought bookings would be hard to come by in busy periods and so it turned out. I’m glad I locked in some bookings at old favourites.
We always walk a fine line between booking places and 'winging it'. There's a level of spontaneity that we enjoy when we're down there. The worst outcome is getting inside 24 hours of a restaurant booking (where you'll get pinged $$$ per head) and then receiving a late invitation for dinner at someone's place or to join another restaurant group. You're a bit stuck then.
Yeah that makes a lot of sense, especially if you know a lot of people down there!
All good points but I might add these too... (I can't help myself )
My LBS#2 and his partner & mates got into Kareela a number of times over the last fortnight & on asking them why they hadn't been able to get a booking online were told that they only booked out 70% capacity and left the remaining 30% for walk-ins. That's what my Daughter and I were going to try but we were only up for the long weekend and never got a chance to see.
I booked Cascades and T-Bar about a month ago (2 @ 7:00) for a Friday and Saturday evening respectively no problem. They sent an automated 'please confirm' the day before and if I hadn't re-confirmed my booking would have been lost. I booked Sante on-line on Sunday itself around lunchtime, again for 2 @ 7:00.
There were a number of free tables there all evening, but they were free as they only took as many people as their short staffed capacity could handle. Even with that it was a bit of a struggle, but they did their best and I gave them a good rating and a tip.
They've also emailed me to ask for honest feedback. I'll be answering as above.Ok so had dinner tonight at The Denman, which was very good indeed. I won’t recount all we ate but the food was very nice indeed, the wine great, the after dinner fortified wine superlative, and the service was excellent. So so happy to have had such a great meal.
That comes off the back of another great evening last night at Candlelight. Candlelight was a family dinner whereas tonight was “date night”. And Candlelight is THE family favourite year in year out, and remains so. The point here though is the food choices were vastly different, so it’s not possible to compare. But again, the food, service and wine were all exemplary. I love that place.
Coming off the back of an excellent meal at Crackenback Farm I couldn’t be happier with our “eating out” experiences this week. On mountain is a total frickin disaster, but Sante aside the dinner choices have been very very good indeed. it would be hard to pick one as being better than the other - they’re all very good to excellent.
Interestingly though while Crackenback Farm was maybe 80% full, I’d say Candlelight was 66% full, and Denman 50-60% full. Lots of spare tables at all of them. Not sure what’s going on there.
Interesting - I tried to book candlelight. Might wonder across the road and see if I can get in.
Not enough staff to do a good enough job if they fill all the tables? Pissing people off with poor/slow service may do more harm to business in the long run
This.
Not enough staff to do full seatings. Better to serve the people that are there well
Had the Beef Goulash from Eagles Nest. Was good, would eat again.
