The Grande Hotel & Restaurant

We ended up eating here due to the other restaurant being booked out and I'm sure glad they were. The food was delicious and good serving. They let us change the four course meal to carter for our needs and had excellent customer service. The atmosphere was romantic and cosy and I will definitely be back :).

Wonderful restaurant with a great old world atmosphere. The host was very welcoming and attentive. The meals were delicious and well sized. The choice to go to The Grande was a recommendation from another restaurant which was closed on the Monday we dined. We can only thank them for this recommendation and it is good to know that there is that support from the township. On our visit there were only adults that I could see however there is two dining areas within the restaurant.

We were not staying as hotel guests, but were recommended by the staff at Hepburn at Hepburn, a local Gallery owner, and Hepburn Springs star taxi driver (Serge) to try the food here as they all believe it to be first class. They were right. On the last Tuesday of each month there is a regional dinner, and this night was ‘memories from home – travel with chef Domenico to his home of Bologna”. Four more than ample courses of lovingly made dishes created from scratch with local produce for $80, and could be paired with matching wines. The wine list needs a little developing but is adequate.First were two antipasto plates with a selection of salamis and house-baked breads (with a delightful pork sausage that was somewhat akin to pork rillettes), tiny spinach and mozzarella filled pastry calzone with a cinnamon tinged tomato sauce to dip, and piadina with fresh made ricotta cheese.The second course was tagliatelle hand made with tipo 00 flour and free range organic eggs, tossed through chef Dom’s nonna’s recipe for ragu Bolognese.Third was 72 hour braised Sher Wagyu brisket with a Lambrusco caramel glaze, smoked creamy mashed potato and King Brown mushrooms.The grand finale was a traditional Zuppa Inglese served with house made hot chocolate foamed mousse.Food was excellent. Service was very good with personal engagement from chef Domenico. Old style dining room ambance was good. Will be on the revisit list

After reading all the reviews on TA, I was super excited to go and eat at this restaurant. However, unfortunately we were a little disappointed. The room is beautiful and the service superb. The wine list is amazing and at fantastic prices. We chose the degustation menu and I think that's where we went wrong. The serves are way too big for a degustation. Some of the courses were beautiful- others not so. We are glad we went and we loved the ambiance - next time I would order off the a la carte menu though.

We had a magnificent dinner at the The Grande Hotel. It was friendly, warm and welcoming experience with fabulous food and perfectly matched wines. Chef Dom is a real talent and I get the sense that he will really launch this old style hotel into the stratosphere with the quality of the cooking, the fresh ingredients and the cooking innovations he is introducing. I started with the stuffed sardines. They were fresh, tender and perfectly flavoured. Very Sicilian ... The other entree that was ordered was the quail. It was loaded with flavour, moist and tender... really quite perfect. For firsts we had Burnt Butter and Sage Ravioli... You get 6 very descent sized freshly made ravioli with a nice sprinkle of butter sauce. They went down a treat. Other 1st plates were the gnocchi which were freshly made, pillow like in fluffiness with a lovely pumpkin sauce ... For main we had the Salmon with crispy, aerated skin which was fresh, beautifully cooked and balance. We also ordered the Veal Rib-Eye cooked perfectly to medium rare. It was tender, perfectly salted and really did melt away in your mouth. We also ordered the breast of duck on a bed of beetroot. It was very well cooked and it looked spectacular sitting on the beetroot base. (see photo). By know we were very full but thought we would have a go at the Tiramisu. So a plate arrived with a big round chocolate ball on it!!! Where is the Tiramisu we thought? Well it was inside the chocolate ball!!! The waiter poured a hot coffee over the ball that instantly melted to reveal the cream and biscuit aspect of the dessert. it looked awesome and tasted superb. It was a fant night out!! I highly recommend that when in Daylesford / Hepburn Springs that you give this restaurant a go.