Ostra

My lamb was tough but my 3 friends enjoyed their food. Desserts define. Waitress friendly. Ambience enjoyable.

We went to Ostra to celebrate my daughter’s birthday. The restaurant has a lovely ambience and the wait staff were good, although I wouldn’t say the service was anything exceptional, rather what you would expect from a restaurant at this price point. One small disappointment was that when my daughter ordered her dessert, our waitress told her that her birthday dessert is a different dessert to her order. It was a lovely gesture, but announcing it to her beforehand unfortunately took away from what could have been a nice birthday surprise. The oysters were fresh and absolutely delicious, and we all really enjoyed our main courses. The portions aren’t particularly large, but they were adequate and the food itself was very good. The cocktails were also excellent. Unfortunately, the desserts were a huge letdown. I had the cheesecake, which was bland and fairly forgettable. My partner ordered the sticky toffee pudding, which was hard, almost biscuit-like, and lacked flavour. My three children had the tiramisu, which was essentially dry sponge cake with the coffee flavour seeming to come mainly from the ice cream rather than the tiramisu itself. None of the desserts lived up to the standard we expected. Overall, there were definitely some highlights, particularly the oysters, main courses and cocktails, but at Ostra’s price point I expected the experience to be consistently excellent from start to finish. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. While we enjoyed parts of our meal, there wasn’t enough about the overall experience to justify the prices or make us want to return.