Provenance Craft Bistro

We are working our way through the Entertainment Book and had passed on Provenance a couple of times, but finally decided to give it a try this morning for breakfast. For once I hadn’t read any reviews before ordering, and I’m so glad because I ordered the Guacamole breakfast option and then checked Unilocal and saw a not so flattering photo and review of my chosen dish and my heart sank… But when it arrived along with my partners Eggs Benny I actually checked with the waiter that it was the Guac breakfast as it looked amazing — and tasted even better! They have definitely worked in their plating with the guacamole spread on toasted Turkish bread and topped with two perfectly poached eggs, a fresh tomato salsa, rocket and dukkah on the plate for dipping. I had added bacon and it was deliciously smoky and rounded out the dish perfectly.
The Eggs Benny special had my partner raving and I had to steal some of the Hollandaise, and then some more… It was lovely and thick and perfectly tangy.
The only issue was lukewarm coffees so we finished them before our breakfasts arrived. But we ordered another round and they were just right.

Nope don’t bother. Slow, stale and boring.

Dinner last night… Well:
We waited an hour to get our mains… Sliders is all we had. They came out and they were cold.
I ordered the rare beef as a starter, which was completely missed as a starter, it came out after our mains quite strangely. It was dry, and cold.
As we wanted so long after we ordered for our food to come out I asked one of the waitresses to follow up on the orders for us, she acted like it was a huge effort to do this. Then came back and told us there had been a big group and if we didn’t have our food in 10 minutes to ask her again… Not sure it’s my job as a customer to have to continue following up on things?!
Won’t be going here again.

A refreshing refurb of the old Gilhooleys, with a bit of a Frenchy feel. It’s a shame some of the menu items don’t have a Europeon bend to match.
Straight up menu of burgers, pizza, sharing platters, fish and steak…
I was blown away, it was amazing but it wasn’t awful either. Nice place to stop for an honest meal in between retail therapy sessions of before/​after a movie.

Starting on a positive, this place smells nothing like the gilhooleys that used to be here. If you ever went to the chermside gilhooleys you can appreciate the achievement here.
Anyway, I’m guessing the owners saw the writing on the wall for Irish pubs, the rise of classy craft beer places and decided to follow the money. Beers, traditional cocktail lists, jazz covers of 90s pop songs etc etc etc
They also do breakfast on weekends. The coffee is okay (maybe why there is also mother available on tap) but beware the guacamole menu item. You think it would be a mainly avocado on toast but it’s just eggs with a tiny bowl of avo on the side.
Anyway, chermside has another boring and unremarkable breakfast option to join all the other unremarkable cafés here. Hoorah…