Biggest restaurant blunders of 2022, according to our delicious. 100 reviewing panel

Soggy fried ice cream, fridge-cold bread and butter and corked wine — these are some of the biggest restaurant blunders of the year.

Our team of dedicated food critics spent the past 12 months eating out across Victoria.

While the majority of experiences were deliciously pleasant, some left a strange taste in our mouths.

Here are the biggest restaurant blunders our delicious. 100 reviewing team copped on the reviewing circuit.

Deep-fried ice cream should be served warm on the outside, cool on the inside. Picture: Glenn Hampson

Soggy fried ice cream

The marriage of two equally delicious things — that scientifically shouldn’t work together — is a marvel in itself. Ice cream (cold), deep fryer (extremely hot). A Chinese restaurant favourite marries ice-cold vanilla ice cream with breadcrumbs before the combo is dunked in hot oil until golden — yet at one fancy Chinese restaurant our fried ice cream experience didn’t live up to expectation. It was served lukewarm with a flabby outer coating and lacking the almighty crunch you would expect before you reach the textbook cold ice cream. Very obviously not fried to order. We expected better.

We are judging you on your bread. Picture: Annika Kafcaloudis

Overpriced and under-egged

How much would you spend on a phenomenal dining experience? It’s a hard question to answer. More expensive doesn’t guarantee greatness, and that was certainly the case at one regional fine diner. Bread and butter served cold from the fridge. Unusually long wait times between courses. Finding it impossibly hard to get someone’s attention for another drink, despite a swarm of waiters working the floor. Staff seemingly more concerned with a function that was happening in an adjacent dining space rather than attending to diners. Having your table set for the main meal — twice. We allow for mistakes but this venue summoned a lot of bad luck that night.

There is an etiquette to serving wine at a restaurant.

A whine about wine

Can we rant about wine for a second? Know the delicious. 100 reviewing team passes zero judgment on how you consume your bottle of red on a Friday night in the comfort of your own home. Drinking from a mug? You do you. Straight from the bottle? Maybe we need to talk. But when people are dropping top dollar at restaurants, there is a manner in which things must be done. Wine should be poured at your table. Always. No exceptions. Not poured at the bar and brought over by the glass. Even slipping it into a decanter out of sight and pouring this tableside gives us the irks. At the very least your waiter or sommelier should bring you the bottle for you to inspect before the glass is served (mainly for you to check what they are serving is what you ordered). You should then be given the opportunity to taste the wine to check if it’s faulty (if you can’t tell, no sweat, just make sure it tastes nice and you’re happy with it). If you give them the all clear — hooray — it’s good times all around. While reviewing, our critics copped it all: from faulty and corked wines to those served in chunky, ugly glassware, and even a double whammy at one exxy fine diner of a faulty expensive red Burgundy, not poured tableside and with cork floating throughout.

There was not a lot to like about one Lygon St restaurant.

Italian job

A popular, and rather new-ish, addition to the city’s Little Italy was a doozy on both visits for one critic. Staff were AWOL for long periods at a time, a surprise Saturday tax wasn’t disclosed on the menu and mains didn’t meet the mark. All in all, a lot of hype for very little reward.