My dining group was fortunate enough to get a booking here at short notice, but I think if I had booked this place months in advance I would have been pretty disappointed. The restaurant fit out is nice and intelligently thought out, using the ambient street lighting to achieve a great sense of intimacy. When it came to the food though, unfortunately I found the entrees and mains to be fairly unremarkable – even the renowned duck curry. Desserts on the other hand were great and as the last impression, probably explain why people look back on Coda so fondly. Service wise, Coda was a bit slow and brusque. Despite having a two hour allotment, our mains did not arrive until quite late. When they finally did, we were advised to order dessert straight away. This (on our server’s reckoning) only left us about 15 minutes to eat our mains before dessert arrived. Then after all this fuss about having to leave promptly, we were left waiting and had to ask two different waiters for our bill then and then our coats. I guess we didn’t look like the type to tip and for that kind of service, they were right.
Location
CBD, Melbourne