Overall a vast improvement, but with a few caveats...

Overall a vast improvement, but with a few caveats. The biggest problem with the restaurant section on a Saturday night (and probably nay night) was that it was incredibly noisy - too noisy to hear across the table, even when shouting, thus you can only converse with the person directly next to you. No-one expects a pub restaurant to be hushed, but this was just ridiculous. They had some acoustic tiles on the ceiling, but the restaurant section has two long parallel and absolutely flat hard-surfaced walls, and the sound from the rest of the pub just bounces between them until it is deafening. Hire an acoustic engineer, FFS! The other caveat was the crab and calamari linguini. It was supposed to have a hint of chilli but the chef had emptied what seemed like half a packet of chilli flakes into to, completely swamping all other flavours and ruining the dish. In retrospect, we should have sent it back to the kitchen. The lamb nicoise was excellent, as were the grilled halloumi vegetarian offering and the the Bondi burger from the kid's menu - yes, it is child-friendly, which is nice. The deconstructed pig's head as fish fingers entree with piccalilli was tasty if a bit overhyped by the waiter, and the triple-cooked chips, which were good, were actually wedges. Overall though, pretty good, but quality control in the kitchen could be improved. And please, just fix the bloody noisiness!