Pier Farm - Williamstown

Main meal and entree were delicious, the desserts were a let down

Fabulous ... a very nice segway from the Anchorage days and much more. Atmosphere Food Wine 5 Star World Class ... A million dollar view ... highly recommended

Overall the experience at Pier Farm was good!<br/ The interior was gorgeous, staff very attentive to detail and food was good.<br/ <br/ For starters, we the shuckered oysters with raspberry vinaigrette which was very fresh and delicious.<br/ <br/ We also ordered the fish of the day and the seafood linguini. We felt the fish of the day was alright as the fish was cooked well but the salad was a miss as it didn’t match the fish at all. <br/ The seafood linguini was delicious though. <br/ <br/ Overall: 4/5<br/ <br/ Pier Farm is a lovely restaurant in Williamstown to go to but it is quite expensive. However the food, service and views make up for it! <br/

4.5. This is one of those ones where you curse the loss of the half mark option. 4.5 would have completely nailed, but 5 is maybe that bit too high and 4 way too low.<br/ <br/ Pier Farm is extremely good taking all key indicators into account. The location and space are terrific. The food and wine are almost uniformly excellent. The service is good too. It’s very close to a perfect restaurant and well worth travelling across town to as we did as part of restaurant week. <br/ <br/ Some detail. The restaurant is nicely located on Port Phillip bay. It has excellent inside and outside spaces. The whole place has a good feel and is well fitted out. There is a tremendous view outside of the bay including the shipping channel leading into the port, the adjoining marina and various local seabirds. It’s enormously restful and even entertaining. We saw lots including huge ships and pleasure craft. Even a pair of black swans swam by at one point. Inside and out this is a very well appointed place.<br/ <br/ The food is extremely good. The restaurant had chosen a very good menu for this dinner and they delivered it very well. The canapés were excellent. Three types in all. The best was chargrilled prawn on skewers. The prawn meat was perfectly cooked and was delicious. The paired wine, a Pizzini Prosecco, was a wonderful accompaniment. The entree was mighty good too. Stuffed calamari with a tomato sauce. The calamari ripieni was good and the sauce really flavoursome. The stuffing was the hero. Delicate and subtly flavoured it was a real winner. Again, the wine pairing, a Paringa Estate Pinot Grigio, was really outstanding. This is a beautiful wine and it went so wonderfully with this dish.<br/ <br/ Main course was a beauty too. Snapper fillet, asparagus, clams and mussel butter. It came with a lovely salad with a gorgeous zingy dressing. This was matched with a Medhurst Rose, another outstanding choice. The meal was very good. The food wine combination worked superbly again. <br/ <br/ Desert was an absolute triumph. It floored our group of four. I cannot ever recall a better cheesecake than this, a lemon and vanilla bean number. Cheesecake rarely excites me. It’s usually too heavy and the crust too dense in my experience. This cheesecake though was utterly faultless. The cake itself had a beautiful soft creamy texture it was the opposite of dense and it was subtly and thrillingly flavoured. The gorgeously flavoured strawberries added to the overall beauty of the dish. The thin base was excellent too. This dish was a 10/10, particularly when served with another great wine, the Yering Station Cane Cut Viognier. <br/ <br/ There was so much to love about this food and wine. It was close to the perfect menu. The produce was great. It was treated with considerable respect. The overall beauty of the food came from the restraint in its composition and presentation. Every dish looked good. Every dish had very good flavours that delighted with their subtlty and never overreached. In addition, they don’t just really know their food here, they also really know their wines. That was evident from the wine pairings. A quick look at the stored wine around the restaurant showed any number of beautiful and carefully chosen wines, including a number of obscure ones.<br/ <br/ Service was generally good throughout the night particularly from some of the younger servers. It wasn’t faultless though. A response of “...treat it like a degustation”, isn’t the right response to someone seeking a wine top up. There were several coordination issues too, such as wine being served too far before dishes arrived. These were small issues overall though given the quality of food and wine on offer.<br/ <br/ This is a very very good restaurant. A jewel even. It’s an easy 4.5 out of 5 for me. We had a great night. I recommend Pier Farm highly and would happily return very soon.

I have visited several times and each time the food and service have been consistent and of a high standard. Fresh produce and beautiful Mediterranean flavours. One of my top recommendations if you are eating in Williamstown. Great setting on the water too.