Stratosfare Restaurant & Bar
Reviews · · · ·Rating: 1
We ate lunch here in February 2024.
Buffet
A buffet is such a rare dining experience for us that when we realise we’re heading into a buffet, for a second we get a bit excited. Then the irrefutable truth of the buffet dawns on us and we remember that, while good buffets do exist, they are extremely rare.
Stratosfare thinks quite highly of itself, but doesn’t have the chops (or other meats) to back it up. We will say they are correct about the view, it’s pretty nice. And we appreciated the bustling hive of activity up on the hill, between the mountain bike competition, the gondolas, the luge, the freshly sheared alpacas, there was plenty to see.
Stratosfare is a bar, as well as a restaurant, and they have a good looking cocktail menu. Unfortunately, the cocktails themselves were downright awful. We got a salted caramel espresso martini and a black forest mudslide. Yum yum, right? Wrong. After taking an extremely long time to arrive, the black forest had a nasty liquer taste while the martini was watery and not sweet, and didn’t have that delicious coffee flavour either. We often scarf down cocktails at lightning speed; these two were both left at the end of the meal and it was hard going to finish them.
Nothing from the buffet was really worth eating. The raspberry jelly was alright. The brownie was alright, but we don’t believe any of the slices, or the hard bready little donuts, were made on site. The roast potatoes were acceptable but lacked crispness. The bread rolls were squished and firm. The 24-hour slow roast beef with homemade gravy was a great disappointment. The guy was carving it right there, he could work around the gristle if he wanted. But he didn’t want to, and the Fee-Rex literally had to spit a piece out when she found out it was 80% hyper-chewy gristle. The gravy was foul. It had a very strong flavour like somebody had put in a whole tub of Marmite. Hell, maybe even a whole tub of Vegemite.
The desserts were the best of a bad bunch. The pavlova was okay with a nice mix of fruit on top. They offered six different ice cream flavours, which we appreciated, but it was all very airy, non-creamy, the cheapest of the cheap. The mousse had a bitter cocoa flavour. We definitely regretted the amount of dessert we took, so if you are going to come to Stratosfare (which you shouldn’t), approach with caution.