Hotel dining has a bad rap. With its international buffets, name-badged but anonymous service and industrial-strength freshener in the air, you could say for good reason.

Ripe then for the “disrupter”.

Ian Schrager – he of Studio 54 and the original rule-breaker – turned his hand to hotels and introduced the world to the term “boutique hotel” in the process. In the early aughties, his Philippe Stark-designed The Sanderson and St Martins Lane, and their accompanying dining rooms and bars, were London’s hottest spots to be seen, filled with celebs letting their hair down in pre-camera phone abandon.

He made hotel dining cool.

And in much the same way – and taking many of the same design-driven cues to hotel creation – so, too, has QT done the same in Australia.

Melbourne’s QT, which was the old Greater Union cinema site on Russell St, is the newest addition to a growing stable that began with the Gold Coast five years ago. They are hotels renowned for their quirk, where recruitment drives are billed as “auditions” and a hefty sprinkling of so-hot-right-now colours all.

Here there’s fried chicken and craft beer at a laneway bar called Hot Sauce; there’s a rooftop bar for spritzes by the skyline; there’s French patisserie of all manner of artfully designed decadence; even a Japanese knife shop, Tanto. Hot, hot, hot. They’ve nailed those focus group findings to the wall.

And then there’s Pascale Bar and Grill, which has done an admirable job of creating a menu so busily ticking off the trends it runs four dozen dishes deep, presented on a carte so big I can’t imagine how small Donald Trump’s hands would look holding it.

There’s no doubting the menu reads wonderfully well, what with it ticking off prime produce – Sommerlad chickens, Salt Grass lamb – and kitchen playthings – robarta Japanese grill, wood-fired ovens.

And there’s no doubting the room looks great, the dark-tiled kitchen with a full brigade of chefs at one end, a bouquet of red roses in the middle as impressively OTT as only hotel florists truly deliver, comfortable leather chairs surrounding dark, unclothed tables with cushion-strewn banquettes framing the scene.

So, too, the staff. Though after our waitress, upon receiving our order relayed it back with the instructions, “I’m going to bring the entrees, then the mains,” it started to dawn that perhaps “extensive restaurant experience” wasn’t the X factor they were looking for in that audition process.

Unfortunately, reading the menu brought more pleasure than eating it, though it starts well with a “choux box” of cheesy profiteroles topped with black truffle ($6) and a great sardine toastie – tail and head, all – spread with garlic butter ($9).

That the “Nishiki Market Raw Fish Salad” features finger lime and kale should’ve sounded the random-ingredients-misappropriated warning bell. It’s not bad — the fish nicely cured, the daikon underneath sweetly crunchy, the squiggle of mustard in the soy nicely presented — but let down by leathery raw kale as unappetising as it is pointless ($19).

The tomatoes of the “Tomatoes and Friends” had such little personality they wouldn’t have made it past the first round of auditions. And as they say: with friends like these … There’s good reason why alfalfa and pomegranate and fried palm hearts and lemon balm and grapes are never seen together in the same room, let alone the same plate ($18).

The pretzel-crumbed King George whiting ($38) is much better — the crisp-coated, firm-fleshed fillet lovely, the fine dice of beans and potatoes stirred through tartare it was served on likewise. But then there’s a sticky, confit yolk to the side, answering the question no one asked: why doesn’t fish come with egg? Long boned lamb chops tick the man-meat-fire box, though at $45 pricey for three, the mint and orange pistou strangely flavourless.

It’s like exec chef Paul Easson, under the guidance of creative food director Robert Marchetti, has thrown every trendy trick and technique at the menu without thought as to what makes sense where, without asking the question: why? The menu needs to be halved in size and redoubled in its execution.

As though it’s an Insta hit and one of the best-looking desserts going, the glossy raspberry gel that gives the Napoleon Blanky its name this night covered burnt mille-feuille, the OK custard piped strangely to its side ($18). A miss.

Wines by the glass are expensive – and not poured at the table – and along with a wine unordered on our bill so too a handwritten exhortation to leave a tip. With so much promise, the night just added up to disappointment.

So while at The Sanderson in its day you might spot a Madonna here or a Noel Gallagher there and Kate Moss everywhere, at Pascale this night our celeb quotient was provided by Richard Wilkins. Which seems strangely poetic. Or somewhat prophetic.

This review originally appeared on heraldsun.com.au.