The Craftsman Bar & Brasserie

Went out with hubby and a friend who wanted to eat some steak, so we decided to visit the Craftsman in Westfield Carousel. Funnily enough, we’ve been to Carousel many times before but this was actually our first time going to the Craftsman.
From the outside, the venue was very large. The Craftsman has a beautiful exterior but due to the lack of lighting it was quite dark at the front especially during the night time. This is probably why we never really noticed/​considered going inside in the past compared to other food premises that we could see clearly such as Grill’d and Hans Café.
Fortunately the inside was a complete contrast to what we perceived from the outside. We liked how they have decent spacing between tables and how easy it is to move the tables around if you come in a big group. The décor inside was good with warm lighting, plants and funky lights in a shape of bottle caps. The décor really complimented the vibe, which felt casual and even a little upmarket at the same time.
We chose the tasting platter as our entrees and it was a real highlight. I think it could easily cater for 4 people sharing if it’s considered an entrée or if you’re just after some food to snack on. The platter was very well presented. It had pan fried prawns in garlic sauce, Asian style chicken wings with soy honey sauce, chorizo, olives, marinated fetta, salt & pepper squid, Turkish breads and dips.
Everything on the platter was very tasty and satisfying.
For mains we ordered two rump specials ($ 18 every Tue night) and salmon fillet, which was the special of the day. One steak was ordered in medium rare while the other one as medium. Unfortunately the medium rare came as medium and the medium came as well done. Wasn’t such a big deal for us but can imagine some people would mind this sort of thing. Overall steaks were juicy, tasty and came with a decent amount of chips and salad as sides. We were informed that the sides of chips can be changed to other available sides which is a good option for diners.
The smoked salmon rigatoni was part of the weekly special and we really liked the dish. The salmon was cooked with crispy skin, tasty and came with a fancy presentation. We also ordered extra sides, one crunchy onion rings and one wedges.
For desserts, we opted for the trio of homemade desserts which consisted of mini apple crumble cinnamon stewed apples, mini double chocolate pudding with chocolate ganache and mini sticky date pudding. The apple crumble was still a bit cold so we informed our friendly waitress of the night, Raynar, and she warmed it up perfectly for us.
It tasted so much better afterwards. We really enjoyed the trio dessert especially since it only costs $ 9.90 for what we considered a very generous serving! Another one that we had were peppermint tea and a tall glass of ice cream sundae.
To sum it all up, we had a great time at the Craftsman. It was very easy to talk among ourselves especially since the restaurant and pub areas were separated into two sections. We had a good time with what the Craftsman offered us from entrée to dessert and they also had quite an extensive menu for drinks. Prices were reasonable and portions were good, so we’re definitely looking forward to try other dishes next time we’re in the area.

I went to The Craftsman with a few people from work. Ordering was very disappointing. I wanted to get the steak and was told it would take 40mins if I wanted it well done, I have no idea how they are cooking it but I can cook my whole families steak well done in less time that. The waitress really seemed rude as she didn’t want me to order it.
I ended up with the Chicken Galliano… It was Chicken wrapped in prosciutto in a creamy mushroom & vanilla Galliano sauce and saffron risotto… The chicken was super dry, the sauce wasn’t nice and the risotto was a dry barely cooked stack of yellow rice. I ate about ½ of the chicken as I was hungry and left the rest. I ended up eating some of my friends garlic bread, which also was also dry. Not a good experience at all.

After a mildly disappointing night. We returned with an invitation from the manager. I can say that the service did not disappoint & the meal was excellent. A nice atmosphere, music at a tolerable level for quiet conversation & a smile from most staff.

The food is a bit hit and miss here. Tonight we had some veggie fritters and they were a bit blaaaaa, very heavy and not really what I was expecting or wanting.

The proprietors spent a lot of money classing up this joint but every time I go in there, I’m disappointed with the service and food. Staff are friendly but not attentive. Plates are left sitting on tables for ages after people have finished and the food just isn’t tasty or value for money. I’ve had orders go wrong and food not brought out. I truly cringe whenever someone suggests we eat there and I will only go under extreme protest.

Won’t be rushing back anytime soon, my salmon was sitting in a big pool of oil it was very hard to eat. No one else on the table really liked their meals and thought it was a waste of money when you can cook better at home and one person actually felt sick after it. I would definitely avoid this place!

I’m going against the trend and giving them a good review.
The service was friendly, and we arrived after the dinner rush having just seen a movie. The majority of tables were full and people were already eating their meal.
We were shown to a table, having been offered the option of inside or outside, booth or standard. We were then quickly visited by a waiter who took our drink orders and the traditional starter of garlic bread.
Whilst the Garlic bread was not the best I’ve ever had, it certainly wasn’t terrible. Four generous slices was perfect for our table of four.
Speaking of generous, the main meals were huge. Two at the table were unable to finish, although we wanted too.
The pork ribs — «hard work to get to the meat without using your fingers but worth it» and accompanied by four potatoes (certainly not babies) and a purple cabbage slaw.
Steak special — rump cooked as ordered, plenty of steak chips and served with what our waiter called «steak salad»… He was on a roll with the steak streak it seems.
Pumpkin gnocchi — your standard Potato gnocchi that you get when eating out with a light (not over powering) pumpkin sauce.
Stuffed chicken breast — I only wish I was able to finish it. Next time I won’t eat for the day in advance. Delicious and moist chicken, flavorful stuffing and gorgeous creamy potatoes with garlic sauce.
Will be going back.

I went here on a Friday afternoon with work colleagues after a session at bounce over the road (awesome ps). Not blown away but staff was friendly enough. Terrible music. We had tasting plates which were basic and very deep fried. Was impressed with the selection of cider but mostly bottled — wished there were more on tap.

It was ok for a shopping centre bar the service was normal took a while to get the drinks and the food
Mine was really nice I had the crispy skin salmon although not crispy and salmon over cooked but the flavours were there
My partner had the chicken Parma which looked over cooked and dry with a side salad which had 2 drops of dressing I didn’t taste it
It was $ 85 all up 3 drinks, bottle of sparkling water, and the 2 meals
Little disappointed thought it would be way better

Looked the goods but fell well short of expectations…
Good décor and atmosphere. Had everything you would expect on the food and drinks menus.
Today they had a 50 percent hit on the food. The sirloin with red wine gravy was excellent. Christine’s silverside was old, dry and nasty.
Well done to the staff who without question removed it from our bill.

Pub side the Craftsman is great, nice open area, smokers area is isolated so you don’t get a mouth full of ash with you parmi which is great. The seating is set out nicely with high chairs or low lounges, a big projector showing off old school 90’s video clips and the beer is cold but that’s about all that is good.
The restaurant is somewhere I would probably not eat at again unless it was free. Tasting plate was actually pretty nice, very generous serving size which went down well while we were waiting an hour and a half for our mains that never came. On a separate occasion my partner was served a half FROZEN lasagna. Now this could have been forgiven had they not taken the same piece of lasagna, microwaved it and served it still cold on the same plate with no discount or apology. Have a beer there, then go thru the maccas drive thru, at least it wont be frozen.

The food here was really great! My expectations were quite low given the other reviews and that it is a pub at a shopping centre. However the food is very good for pub food — definitely up there with the best meals I’ve had from a pub.
I ordered the pan-​fried barramundi which was cooked well, had a beautiful crispy skin on it and had quite a lot of flavour. The portion sizes are also quite large and everything is reasonably priced.
Where the Craftsman seems to fall down for me is the service. The staff seem very unsure of themselves and like they genuinely would rather be elsewhere — their delivery just seems clumsy. I asked to remove an element of a dish I ordered and after taking our menus, the waitress said she had to check with the chef. She came back a moment later and said they weren’t able to deliver it without the almonds. When I questioned if they were in the sauce or another ready-​made element she said she wasn’t sure but the chef said it would be too hard. I’m sorry, but when you’re paying for a meal a response of «that would be too hard» is quite poor.
Service can also be painfully slow — we were waiting to pay for several minutes and saw a queue of people form at the door while staff chatter amongst themselves, or busied themselves looking everywhere but at the forming queue.
If you’re looking for an alternative to the fast food and takeaway of the food court while you’re at Westfield I would definitely recommend the Craftsman for good food and great value. I wouldn’t go out of my way to come here if I weren’t already at the shopping centre, and you do need to make some allowances for the staff!

Was greeted very warmly when enter the craftsman and shown to a table straight away, the waitress instantly took our drinks order and a few minutes later one of the drinks arrived and the waiter took our order for food, I had ordered a latte which came out a few minutes later and I have to admit it wasn’t that great because it came out cold and I have had better at home. The food on the other hand was extremely quick coming from the kitchen and we ordered bruschetta which was amazing and some chips which were freshly cooked and came with plenty of dipping sauce. The only thing that let it down was about 30 sec after our food arrived was the waiter came back to ask how the food was and we had only just organised our plates. 5 min after that a waitress came back to see how everything was and that was a fair amount of time to determine if we were enjoying our food. Would definitely go back and try something different next time.

Have had nothing but terrible experiences with this venue. Terrible décor, disgusting food and below average customer service. It says a lot that I would rather eat at Hans!
They are able to cook a fairly decent steak though so I guess that’s one thing.

Reference our friend who was told, after the rude waitress ‘told’ us what dish we ordered and insisted we pay for it, we asked for the manager expecting the problem to be resolved. Unfortunately the manager was on her workers side and decided we lied about the starter that was ordered and said she would check video surveillance !!! Yes you read correctly folks, the god damn video footage, to see if we were lying. After checking the spy cams the manager came back and said the platter that we never ordered was taken of the bill. Like we would ever have paid for it in the first place.
So if you enjoy sub standard food and appalling service please try the craftsman. Watch out though, you will be under the security systems scrutiny!