Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Donovan's (St.Kilda) 03/2015

Yep, Donovan's is open again and catering for diners with an attempt at seriously good food.
The place has had a facelift and looks better than it used to. The interior has been altered although the original structure is still evident.
 
The Greek columns outside and the brilliant views along St.Kilda beach from the window seats are unchanged.

Their menu contains lots of their former dishes, denoted by a little line drawn house on the menu, and a lot that is new. There is also a heavy promotion of their name on glasses, plates                                                                                        




and so on. 
Tables are bare

 and bread is served with both butter and a bean dip.
Their 'crudo' selection was yellow fin tuna, finely sliced over a dome of vegetables dominated by avocado and a strong lemon taste.      Rather unbalanced I thought.



    
 

























My preferred starter was the twice cooked soufflé of Beaufort and Reggiano chees with vineyard snails and parsley sauce $24.00
Unfortunately the souffle was very bland. A pretty dish and the little garden of snails, cream fraiche and ?spinach puree was lovely to see and eat.
Beef cheek in a very cheesy macaroni sauce was too rich for comfort.
On the other hand BBQ'd snapper could not have been more plain. No messing around with the hero of this dish. The fish did the talking.

It did come with potato wedges and a few lettuce leaves.
A linguini marinara was undistinguished and seriously overpriced at $52 as a main course.

The best looking dish we had was a bomb Alaska to share.

 
Ultimately I felt that they tried very hard but did not quite succeed in producing really good food.



Score: A bare 14/20

3 comments:

Unknown said...
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Unknown said...

Ive always felt that this restaurant is a classic example of 'paying for the view not for the food' The food is good but not $50 a main good. Really feel the restaurant is well past its prime and is simply cashing in on the nostalgia factor. Its long gone off my recommendations list.

Elliot and Sandra said...

Thanks for your comment Mr Gupta. Unfortunately I think you are right. I will not be going back there again. I feel it is a little harsh to condemn a place after one visit but life is too short.