The Animal at Newtown Hotel

I love Newtown Hotel in general but it’s been more of a rocky relationship with The Animal. It’s been a hit-​or-​miss for me.
I’ve dined up there five times. I’ve had a mix of positive interactions and negative experiences with the staff so I guess it depends who is working. It takes quite a while to order at the bar (yes it’s smaller I know). Finally, the food is so-​so. I’ve had the prawns, lamb, potato entrée to name a few. Most dishes seems overpriced for the quality. My fellow diners and I walked away underwhelmed I’d say three out of five times.
The atmosphere and set up is so cool however. The balcony is a fun place to hang out as well.

I love the venue and the food is really delicious. However, it’s pretty difficult to order for one if you don’t want to share — there actually aren’t any non-​vego options — which is a shame.

Awesome Greek food, such a surprise. Have made reservations and have also turned up and had drinks on the verandah while waiting. Food is great and staff friendly

Yes, we had more reservation shenanigans this time, but I looked at the menus of our other options in Newtown and since my friend is a diehard carnivore, this was the best one. I will not regale you with the details, Unilocal friends. Lets get to the nitty gritty…
DINNER WAS FABULOUS!
I love this place.
Reservation bullshit aside, this place is awesome. The staff are friendly and attentive, the food is great. The experience once you get here is awesome. The music, the ambiance, THE FOOD is awesome!
We had a feast of spit roasted lamb, potatoes, greek salad, split pea dip with bread, fab wine, great waitress. Flawless, flawless… lovehearts and rainbows all around. Happy happy joy joy.

Well, they’re organised. And they don’t like to be stood up.
They hit you with an aggressive confirmation policy — I got an email, a follow-​up email and I think a text although I may have made that last one up. I’m a popular guy, I get a lot of texts. Some texts. Fine no texts. Anyway, it’s different and it leaves you under no illusions about when you’re expected at dinner.
We kicked off with some of their house wines poured straight outta the taps at around $ 6.50 a glass and you know what? They’re pretty good. The savvy b was definitely passable and the cabernet the same. Tick.
Starters we got the crumbed fried olives, the warmed olives (both solid, yo), and a $ 13 bowl of haloumi that had 4 tiny pieces. Might have been good but it didn’t touch the sides on the way down so a little hard to say. Mains, couldn’t go past the spit roast lamb at $ 20 a bowl, its just meat so definitely designed for sharing. Rub with a little charred lemon and you’re away. The veal meatballs and the tomato salad were okay, the beet and ricotta salad was terrific, and the value at around $ 45/​person was just kinda sorta maybe okay. Temper this with the idea I had in my head of ordering a full spit roast woolly mammoth and being given a sword to carve and eat it with. Reality was a little different but hey, I’m a dreamer.
Point for the siiiick setup, it’s a sweet little (big) place, jag a seat on the balcony if you can.

I think for the very first time, I’m actually speechless. Where do I start with this review?
OK, lets go wayyyy back. A friend had called a few weeks prior to Christmas to book for a table of 6 — no problem however the booking was not for this place but for another Key Stone establishment, Sweethearts. Well anyone else would have shrugged their shoulders, told us too bad and moved on (which we would have understood given it was a few days prior to Christmas so was P2C (packed to capacity)) HOWEVER, this incredibly generous and helpful staff member somehow made arrangements for our group to be seated at a booth for dinner and drinks — not only that, he also insisted to give us drinks on the house for the inconvenience of having booked Sweethearts — WHAT? Dood are you serious? Surely the inconvenience is on The Animal? Give this man a medal STAT !!!
So clearly the staff are exceptional but what about the food? It’s always interesting to experience Greek food outside of my own home and I must say, of all modern greek restaurants, this one is as close to the real thing ! For the love of god, do yourselves a favour and order something from the spit menu — unfortunately, the pork was all pre-​ordered so we were left with the lamb and beef (which of course did not disappoint). The bean salad is SPOT ON and makes for a great side dish. The potatoes? «Backyard style» indeed — lemon and oil — no other way to eat it.
I truley loved this place, the vibe, the fitout, the service, the food. in the words of mortal combat — flawless victory !!

Service here is stellar. The girls really work hard to get you comfortable and explain everything in detail, friendly faces and smiles galore which, of course, makes things go smoothly. Food on the other hand is a little bit of a let down. The Wagyu Bolar was OK but arrived with a heap of fat, the lamb was great but was very small in size and the green beans were essentially mush. Having said that, they do amazing things with potatoes. We didn’t visit the bar downstairs or outside on the verandah but it looks like a very popular part of the Newtown Hotel refurb. We probably won’t come back for the food but may visit the bar in future.

Arrived late to a birthday celebration here with eight others — even though the restaurant was busy there was no problem about us being a bit late (we did call before to let them know we were stuck in traffic) .
The restaurant is on the first floor of the Newtown Hotel, so you walk through the bottom floor to go up the steps. The hotel looks to have been recently renovated and was busy when we walked through. Initial imopressions of the restaurant — cute décor but the lights were a bit dim which makes it very difficult to see (another too trendy item for me to appreciate) we had to hold our candles up to be able to read the menu properly. The restaurant is very buzzy and loud in a good way giving it a happy atmosphere and enjoyable to be in .
Our waittress was the nicest person on the planet (she really was). I wish I had found out her name to give her a wrap because she was the perfect waittress. She was just the right amount of business mixed with charm and easy-​goingness. First up we had a few cocktails and she went through these and asked enough questions to be able to match us with cockatils we all enjoyed. The cocktails start at $ 15 and range upwards. Then we started with mixed olives and a trio of the dips with a rustic pita bread. All were lovely — a little different than normal but still nice. The tarasamalata was not salty at all and initially I wasn’t sure but a couple more bites made me a fan.
The mains are made more for sharing — all sides need to be ordered separately. This was great for us as a group as we got to sample a lot of the dishes.
Suckling pig– I didn’t try this but it was getting some rave reviews at the table
suckling lamb — soft and juicy just the way it should be
greek salad. light and fresh and delicious — they use good quality olives and feta so I was happy.
watermelon mint and feta salad — my favourite sweet and salty goodness yum
beetroot salad — my least favourite of the salads
green beans in a garlic tomato sauce (a bit sweet for me, but other liked them)
chicken skewer with pita bread, tzazicki and salsa-(there is only ine skewer per plate so you may want to order something extra if you are hungry, I also didn’t try this but I hear it was nice)
fat chips with lemon aioli– I think we got the warm bowl done my end of the table — the others had hot delicious fries, I had warm not too crunchy fries — nice but nothing exciting for me.
I would definitely go back to have another very enjoyable evening