Review - The Heritage Brassiere

On Saturdays I write a review on a goods or service, today I’m reviewing the Heritage Brassiere. The Old Royal Insurance Building has been revamped and is now a bar, brassiere and board room. They are open for breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week. We went there for dinner with another couple last Saturday.

Firstly the place looks great; the designers have done an excellent job on the renovations. It is light and airy with clean lines and a great use of space. Sadly, that about the only praise I have for the place.

With our friends running late my husband and I had to eventually call a waiter over to order drinks and water.  When our friend arrived we ordered a bottle of wine, we picked the second cheapest, a Huia Sauvignon Blanc, for $52 dollars, this retails for $23 so that is a nice little profit. The majority of the wines on the list are French, which I’ve said before I think is really pretentious. Again the service left a lot to be desired, with only one of us being poured wine, we had to call the waiter, who had to call the wine waiter over to pour the rest of us a glass. When we ordered our second bottle, instead of a bottle they brought a glass. The service was rough to say the least.

For entrees two of us ordered the shrimp cocktail, my husband had the beef carpaccio, apple & beetroot chutney, shaved Assagio and my friend had the twice baked Gruyere souffle, curry yoghurt & eggplant. I have a real thing about prawns being deveined, so falsely assumed this would be the case here, I was wrong, so ended up swapped my shrimp cocktail with my husband’s carpaccio. Sadly the capaccio was bland. My friend’s soufflé was delightful, light, fluffy and flavoursome.

Beef carpaccio

For mains two of us ordered the gain fed sirloin, this comes only with a sauce so we also ordered hand cut chips and mixed leaves. My husband had Seared scallops, risotto, cafe de paris, which he really enjoyed, but at $39 he was disappointed that there were only four scallops. My other friend had Barramundi pan-fried, seasonal vegetables, riesling sauce which she said was ok. I eat my steak rare, but I got the distinct impression that it had been par cooked prior to service and it was very tough and had no juices. My friend’s steak had a giant strip of gristle attached. I was still hungry so had the crème brulee for desert, this was lovely.

We all agreed that the food at The Heritage was a little ordinary, even disappointing, as was the service. We will not be going back, or recommending it to others. To eat this ordinary food we paid $470 which I think is outrageously bad value.