The National Hotel

This is a pub? The food is worthy of a top tier resturant! And no where near the price. Plenty of seating, comfy funky décor, great staff. Why can’t every bloody pub be like this?!

Love the national. Great looking industrial space, spacious beer garden, mostly recycled materials and usually a couple of excellent beers on tap.
But it’s the food that sets this place apart. With strong Asian influences, it’s hard to pick a dud.
We used to get the sticky lamb ribs back in my red meat eating days, and they were outstanding. The meat would fall off the bone with amazing honey/​sweet flavours.
Today we shared three items from the snack menu. Spicy chicken ribs, prawn spring rolls and tofu and zucchini fritters.
The prawn spring rolls were good, and served with a delicious dipping sauce. Wrap those little suckers up in mint and lettuce and yum yum yum.
The chicken ribs are always crispy and yummy and ultimate comfort food. Good amount of spice and a nice sticky dipping sauce.
The fritters were ok. Good texture and nice and crunchy on the outside. But zero flavours of tofu or zucchini. Luckily the delicious chilli jam saved the day. And they were quite tasty little morsels.
All up, with a ginger beer and a pot of fancy pants, came to $ 43. Excellent value for a quick and quality lunch.

Excellent food! Had the dumpling sample tray (2 of each set), all were lovely but the duck one rocked, so much so we ordered more! The prawn prong rolls were lovely as was the calamari!
Also it has a lovely large beer garden!
Would deffo come back for food or drink.

Had a great night here on a little reunion with our Melbourne crew. It’s been done up fairly recently I believe and I was very impressed. The inside is a little played out ‘industrial’ but the beer garden is large and well set up, tables around the outside, bar, fire etc.
The food is excellent, a slow cooked lamb shoulder, dumplings, soft shell crab were all very very good. The asian influence really works and there are plenty of beers and wines to match. All reasonably priced.
The staff were very pleasant and even kept the place open for us later on in the evening, also they let us get away with smoking a joint which was most kind. Wouldn’t happen in Sydney.
Def check it out. Great pub.

Awesome beer garden. Food excellent for a pub and good service. Music very loud after dark!

Much like our national history the National Hotel has a lot to answer for. It has some quirkiness that’s kinda likeable, some great beer and an interesting menu with a heavy asian influence.
After dining at the National I felt as if we had successfully managed our way through the multi layers of beaurcatic lasagne and were victors with a sticky date pudding.
The polarising differences in the staff attitude here leaves a confused taste in your mouth. The initial staff we first dealt with on arrival were downright rude and borderline arrogant. Now at 6.30 on a Thursday evening, with barely a half doz other customers in I don’t expect tired, cranky and snobbish staff. Our first instance came when the very last dredges of cava were shaken out of the bottle. The barstaff whole heartedly tried to convince me that the Spanish sparkling wine was not flat, just a mishap with a new dishwashing was making the glasses too hot for the bubbles to stay inside. No, it had nothing to do with the old bottle and expired contents. Upon tasting it was evident that the wine had lost all structure and turned acidic. Well and truly past her used by date. A fresh bottle was opened and a glass full of ripe pearl-​esque bubbles appeared.
A few of the menu gave us some great options. Edamame, salt and peper calamari, roti bread and a pulled pork banh mi just for starters. As the two ladies we walked up to the bar to order food and had to wait for a staff member, whilst another was polishing cutlery baskets. Clearly management have set some strict boundaries on roles and responsibilities. A very disinterested barman took our order, and handed over freshly polished cutlery basket. Without enough cutlery. With a polite push we ended up with sufficient cutlery but not serviettes.
When the food arrived it was wonderful, fresh, pub quality asian fare. Perhaps on oxy-​moron but it really works well here. After relaxing and eating all the edamame we moved onto the private room, as we actually were here to see the Pure movie première. A delay in movie screening gave us ample time to make a decision on dessert-​Sticky Date Pudding. Words can not adequately describe our confusion or horror when looking at the menu a mere hour after ordering mains to discover that it had changed. Seasonally changed from winter heart warming dishes to lighter spring infused dishes.
A visit to the front bar area and we found the most helpful, lovely and honest staff member. Who happily explained that yes, there had indeed been a menu change half way through service. She walked us through the changes and discussed with the kitchen what options were readily available. The biggest success of our night was when two sticky date puddings turned up. Nothing quite like watching female freeskiers and eating sticky date pudding on a wet Melbourne’s eve. This one staff member turned out dining experience from a frown to a glowing smile and a two star review-​three star review!
There’s a few other small issues here that left me bewildered. Signs at all cash registers No eftpos. Credit Card only. $ 20 minimum. An odd amount which I am fundamentally against. Whenever I see eftpos limits I’m taken back to the early 90s when this was common practice.
Most of the taps in the ladies room were not functioning. I enjoyed the industrial concrete décor across the venue.

I love what they’ve done with the Nash, although I know the renos have been done for a while now.
The outdoor area is perfect for a birthday celebration or any celebration for that matter. They have kick arse heaters for winter and it’s all open for summer.
Based on this plus a nice selection of tasty beers, 4 stars.

My visit to the National was part of a work Christmas party. We had some tables reserved in the beer garden, and I was not disappointed by the night.
Instead of providing finger food our company simply told us to order anything off the snacks menu as we saw fit. The options were a bit limited, but everything on offer was delicious — even the bowl of chips (served with a light chilli mayo)!. Much of the menu was traditional pub fare, but with a heavy Asian/​seafood influence.
The pub has a simple, casual atmosphere with friendly staff members. A decent night out!

Based on a recommendation, I ended up gathering a few friends at the National when I was in town for my birthday weekend back in January. The bar menu was a sight to behold, with a thoroughly surprising selection of delicious asian-​leaning snacks like dumplings, bun gao and fish cakes. I can never resist the siren song of a steamed pork bun.
The cocktail list was short but sweet with some real tempters on it, but there didn’t really seem to be any career bartenders behind the bar, so what was on the list was what you got. They handled my request for one of the cocktails to be made with gin and not vodka hesitantly, but thankfully the customer continued to be always right.
The fit-​out of the National is maybe my favourite thing about the place, and I suppose it wasn’t surprising to hear that the friend who recommended the place is an architect by trade. The beer garden is stunning on a warm summer evening, and after a few hours out there we retired to the interior, full of woods and metals and plenty of cosy booths for groups.

Awesome place for summer, probably has one of the best beer gardens this side of the river. Good looking crowd.