221 Restaurant & Bar @ The Royal Oak Hotel

Nice setting within the old hotel. Good layout, white table clothes , napkins etc. The food selection reasonable and accommodates all tastes from oysters, scallops, to meats, pasta to lighter and café offerings of burgers etc. A smallish wine list but adequate and not over the top pricing. Service a little slow but wait staff friendly and obliging.

Great fine dining restaurant in the heart of Cessnock. The service was excellent as you would expect from a fine dining restaurant. The food was very tasty and well presented by the kitchen staff. The kids menu was great and staff provided them with a kids entertainment pack to keep them occupied while waiting for their dinner.

We went there under recommendation on a Thursday night in the dining room and were a little disappointed. You could smell the 2 bad oysters before they arrived at the table & was very disappointed this wasn't picked up before they left the kitchen as it can make you very, very sick. We were given a dessert instead & the waitress was very helpful. We were also overcharged the wine we ordered compared to the menu which again downgraded the experience. Our mains were nice but did not really warrant the set price charge for a minimum of 2 courses for Thurs to Sun nights. It did have a bus pick up which was great after wine tasting in the area during the day & allowed us to go to dinner with drinks without worrying about driving. We will try again to see if it was a once off?

Ordered the slow-roasted lamb, my colleague had an entree pork belly.Nice tucker, but so small! i thought they had mistaken the order, entree and main. But no.Mentioned this to the waitress: 'would you like to order a side dish? Chips?'No, I didn't want a side dish, I wanted a reasonable serve of what I ordered, slow-roasted lamb!The waitress (pleasant enough, young, inexperienced) seemed bemused by the situation and retreated, so we ate and left.But at bill time we asked her how she copes with these situations. Does she report unhappy customers to the manager? Well, yes, she does, but at the end of the night. We suggested gently that this was too late for any remedial action, and results in dissatisfied customers leaving restaurant, still unhappy not good for business or repeat custom.In retrospect I should have asked her to report this immediately to the manager. Instead I went back to hotel, filled up on cheese and biscuits.....

Only had the bar meal and listened to the music both which were fantastic food was great not what you would expect of bar food. highly recomended Great food ,fantastic atmosphere highly recomended