Melbourne's Strato is a dining room with a killer view

Strato is a restaurant straight out of central casting. You know the deal: everything is black and shiny, the banquettes are velvet, the curtains sheer, the techno-jazz soft. And the view is a killer.

That view, from the 40th floor of the Oakwood Premier Melbourne hotel in Southbank, is the main selling point of both Strato and sister venue Skybar, the cocktail bar located at the other end of the same floor (both managed by Yarra Hotel Group). Strato has the advantage of facing the CBD: the view looks out over the Convention and Exhibition Centre and the casino and on up the Yarra towards the towers of the city. 

It's quite a thing to sit here and sip a Sky High martini ($28), made with oyster shell gin, grappa and manzanilla sherry, and look out over the twinkling lights. The cocktails, a collaboration between Proof & Company's consultant Charlie Ainsbury and Sky Bar venue manager Josh Dowling, are a high point.

The chef is Gagan Sharma, born and trained in India before spending time at a high-end hotel chain in Dubai, then at the Taj Palace in New Delhi. His experience in Australia has mainly been with various Hyatt hotels and his menu at Strato is, according to the infuriatingly obtuse website, inspired by the five elements: the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the cryosphere, the lithosphere and the biosphere. I have no idea what that means: the food is from Earth, I suppose.

If Strato has all the trappings of opulence, things start to fall apart when it comes to execution. A foie gras terrine ($39) was rich and velvety, made from chicken livers and canned foie gras (the only kind available in Australia). But it was a terrine in shape only, its consistency more like a loose mousse. I have no idea how they got it on the plate, nor why they only offered two tiny crispbreads as accompaniment. It's not like it was solid enough to eat with a fork.

So much of what's being served here reminded me of hotel cookery 20 or even 30 years ago: pre-cook some lobster, then barely heat it to order; bung some foam on top and a splatter of an unidentifiable liquid across the plate; then charge an arm and a leg for it ($42 as an entree). 

Imbue a Jerusalem artichoke soup ($36) with so much truffle oil that the sweet vegetable is barely perceptible, and pay more attention to the presentation of pouring it from a cute vessel than the fact that doing so – onto a cold plate – renders the whole thing tepid. (Temperature is an issue across the board.)

All of this is frustrating because Sharma can obviously cook. The steaks ($75-$105 and mainly wagyu, of course) are prepared sous vide, then cooked to order and the result is impressive.

That soup, if not for the truffle oil, would have been a beautiful, classic veloute, its consistency thick and creamy in a way that a lesser chef could not manage. 

The skin on the duck is crisp, the interior rosy … but do I think two fat slices of breast meat on a plate ought to cost $49? Not really. Do I think lavender, with all its perfumed excess, is the right flavour to pair with duck? No. It reminded me of the sachets in my nanna's hanky drawer. 

But there's no denying that there's skill in this kitchen. I just don't think it's being used in ways that are valuable.

Speaking of value, what could possibly make a dessert worth $33? I admit to choosing the most expensive option (excluding the cheese plate, which is $45), a dark chocolate, mousse-like thing swirled with a too-sweet blackberry coulis, then topped with sheets of thin, burnt-ice-cream-cone-tasting biscuit. That said, the cheapest options – including the sorbet – are $29, so I'm not being particularly extravagant. 

One evening, when my table of two ordered four starters and one main to share, almost everything came out at once, leaving our server to stand and look at us as if we should figure out where to put plates that simply would not fit on the table. We were 20 minutes into our experience and not finished with our cocktails, yet most of our food was already delivered. Did no one – the server, the chef – consider pacing? Despite a busy and suave-looking maitre d', no one was really overseeing the customer experience.

Why do we tend to get hotel restaurants so wrong in this country? New York and London and many other cities have wonderful hotel restaurants that fit in with the scenes that surround them. I know this is Southbank and that what surrounds this particular venue is basically a casino; even so, Melburnians are not so naive as to accept good views and the availability of Krug on the wine list ($1635) as enough to declare a win. 

What about this restaurant is unique? What about it has anything to do with this city, other than its very lovely view of its skyline? The answer, unfortunately, is nothing.

Vibe: LA-swank, like the set of a film where Ryan Gosling teaches some schlub how to be schmick

Go-to dish: Lavender-glazed roast duck breast ($49)

Drinks: Very good cocktails. A medium-length wine list, made up of Australian and European picks, that's heavy on the big reds

Cost: About $250 for two, excluding drinks

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine