The Westin Melbourne is a very nice hotel. Therefore you'd expect its premier restaurant to be a very nice restaurant. Nice, yes, but how is the food?
Somewhat unusually for a hotel restaurant, the interior of Allegro feels like a hotel, not a restaurant. It is as if they stuck a bar and some tables in a large lobby area. Don't get me wrong, it's very elegant and tasteful, it just looks more like a hotel than a restaurant. The views over Collins Street are extremely pleasant, however, especially on a cool, sunny day.
Service was quite good, passing the standard refill-your-water-glass-automatically test. You'd expect good service from a restaurant in a hotel like this one, where the clientele includes famous showbizzy people: toward the end of our meal, the table next to ours was taken by the female cast of Mamma Mia (Rhonda Burchmore et. al.). I was curious, but we didn't stick around long enough to determine if they received better service than we did (which might have then bordered on obsequious).
The food was, unfortunately, not all that inspired. "Nice" is a good way to describe it. It was reasonably priced for the market ($20 - $30 mains) but the menu was decidedly unadventurous - standard cuts of meat, the usual grilled fish, vegetable pasta, chicken breast. Makes you wonder what sort of guests are expected to stay here. My saffron, chilli and ginger prawn risotto was a bit short on the saffron, chilli and ginger, and also a bit salty, though it was satisfying enough thanks to the quality of the prawns. Dave's crispy-skin salmon was well prepared and more successful than the risotto. He quite enjoyed it, which makes me wish I had ordered that instead. At least the bread served before (and during) the meal was fresh and nicely textured, even if it came in a weird round wire basket which wobbled a lot.
Neither of us felt like drinking much, so we skipped the wine this time.
Dessert was better than the main meal. My chocolate/vanilla mousse was presented looking like something out of Buck Rogers - a cone of mousse (chocolate on top) wearing two different size wide, flat rings of crispy biscuit, drizzed with passionfruit glaze and surrounded by a star of sliced strawberries. The mousse was extremely rich, and had the consistency of butter, instead of the more usual whipped cream feel. Dave's apple and rhubarb crumble was advertised "warm" and served hot, topped by a biscuit cone filled with strawberry ice cream. Dave reports it very tasty and filling. Desserts were about $8 each.
The restrooms (of course) were exactly as you'd expect from a nice hotel like this. Dave pronounced them "Upper-class normal."
I might be suffering this week from a bit of a critical bent - Dave enjoyed Allegro more than I did ("tasty food, good service, comfortable seats, celebrities, 'Upper-class normal' toilets").
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Dave's summary: "A pleasant dining experience."
Probability that we will return: 22 / 42
Note that the probability rating is affected by the fact that there are hundreds of places to eat around here.