www.lacademie.com.au
For those not in the know, L'Academie is a training restaurant for students of the Shaftson School of Hospitality. The place is quite large, with a restaurant, cafe at the front, bar, and upstairs areas for functions. We went there as part of a large (65 people) group booking for L's graduating uni year.
Our experience at L'Academie was basically a lot more miss than hit. Sure, there was a lot working against them as we were a massive group of mostly tipsy students, and of course, the kitchen staff are not professional chefs, however this shouldn't really be an excuse for very average food.
Dinner bookings at L'Academie involve a three course meal, however for some reason there was a giant mixup and we recieved our mains before our entrees. We were seated at 7.30pm, and found there was not actually enough seats for our group, so that other patrons of the restaurant had to be moved around unfortunately, and a few other tables and chairs had to be found. There was quite a reasonable wait for each course.
The mains were as follows; Tasmanian rosemary lamb rump on sweet potato mash with tomato, bulgarian Fetta & mint salsa, Moroccan chicken supreme with new season blood orange sauce on warm couscous salad and finally Cold water slipper lobster with brown rice pilaf, braised leek and chive beurre blanc.
On paper, this sounded amazing, however we did not find it to be so.
L had the chicken; flavours were actually quite bland, and the chicken was pretty dry. The idea was there, however the execution wasn't.
I had the lamb, which was cooked reasonably okay, still pink in the middle. Unfortunately the mash was lumpy, which is inexcusable, we make perfectly smooth mash at home. The broccoli was crunchy and not cooked through. The salsa atop the lamb was confusing, here was a hearty warm meal with a cold salsa on top? Our friend had the lobster, and said whilst the lobster tasted fine, the rice of the pilaf wasn't cooked.
After our mains, the entrees arrived.... Yes that sentence doesn't make sense, but this is how it happened.
L had some very average pork wontons which were deep fried to death and lashed with a bottled sweet chilli sauce. It was supposed to be a plum sauce, with a coriander salad, instead there were a few pieces of grated carrot. I had the "cajun spiced chicken on baby spinach with herb mayo", being presented with an overcooked piece of basic chicken schnitzel that didn't even taste nice.
Dessert was certainly the highlight of the evening. L had a chocolate meringue, and I had a strawberry cheesecake, both of which were reasonably tasty.
Needless to say, we didn't particularly enjoy our meals at L'Academie. I do commend the service though, although there was the obvious massive mistake with mixing around the mains and entrees, all waitstaff made a huge effort in bringing out the meals all at once and coped very well with a big rowdy group.We can also concede that some of what was wrong with the food was probably due to being rushed in the kitchen in order to get the food out to us.
Looking back at previous reviews and pictures, L'Academie seems to have been somewhat better in the past. We're not sure if its just the current menu or the people coming up with the menu. Although its probably the cheapest three course dinner out there (around $30 for a three course meal), we believe the food could be so much better. Its a shame, as we would like to recommend this place in order to support the teaching college, however from our experience, go there without high expectations.
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