Wisemans Inn Hotel

The front-of-house staff were polite, understanding, and apologetic, and the lady at the counter was pleasant when I asked about our food. But the long wait and what happened in the kitchen spoiled what had started as a lovely afternoon. My wife and I took a leisurely Sunday drive along the beautiful roads down into the area, hoping for a sunny bistro lunch. She ordered the parmi and I ordered a medium rump with chips. After a little over an hour, I’d seen several groups of unfamiliar faces arrive and leave with their meals, so I asked about ours. I could hear other customers complaining about similar waits and late arrivals being served first. After 90 minutes from arrival, we politely asked for a refund. A light-haired gentleman with glasses reluctantly responded to the attendant’s request to process it. We were told our order was just being plated and asked if we were sure. My pregnant wife was now nauseous from hunger, so I looked at her and shrugged in agreement. Ten minutes later the food arrived. Her long-awaited parmi was just fine. My rump was delicious, as were the pepper sauce and crispy chips, but the steak was well past medium, closer to very well done. The main disappointment was the head chef that day, who appeared to be a middle-aged woman. She seemed stressed, which is understandable, but muttered loudly in protest in the direction of customers. The woman at the payment terminal said, “she gets a little stressed.” No kidding. It felt unprofessional. Maybe other customers were less courteous when asking about a 90-minute wait, but that response from the kitchen seemed unwarranted given how calmly we behaved. On a quieter or better staffed day, I might have given three stars. The food was okay and the customer-facing staff were courteous. That’s my kindest assessment, two stars. By the time our food arrived, the sunshine had long gone, in more ways than one.

The schnitzel was great, but my broccolini had a full-size worm in it. I took it to the counter, and the lady showed it to the chef, who said, “that shows it’s fresh produce”. There was no apology or offer of a replacement meal or refund. They obviously don’t care about food safety or hygiene.

I had a tasty, quiet lunch on the back terrace, with pleasant surroundings and a view over the hills. The server and bar staff were helpful and friendly, and the food was fine. I also read the historic displays about Solomon Wiseman and looked around the museum upstairs. I’m not from Australia, but I know a little of the history, especially in the Hawkesbury Valley, where the original inhabitants resisted having their land taken and were violently suppressed. That is history, and the country is as it is, but free people of that old culture still live here. It seems very unlikely that Aboriginal people have felt comfortable visiting the upstairs museum. Still, if they did, they would see five vintage rifles hanging above the fireplace, deactivated of course, but possibly used to shoot their ancestors in cold blood. There’s no display board mentioning this and no discussion or evaluation of that violent period. Kate Grenville, a living descendant of Solomon Wiseman, has examined the history of this area and her family and how they came to settle here. Solomon built this house in 1826 for himself and his second wife. Kate wrote a series of novels based on the history she uncovered, The Secret River. I think she would be as horrified as descendants of the area's original inhabitants to see the rifles casually displayed in her great-great-great grandfather's house. I’m not horrified as a neutral observer, just bemused by the lack of reflection in the curatorial choices. Downstairs, a storyboard presents ghost stories that have arisen over the years about this old building. They give historically inaccurate and, as far as I can tell, unfounded accounts of Solomon Wiseman’s personality, saying he treated his Convict Workers cruelly and murdered his first wife, who actually died from a long-term health condition. These seem like fanciful tales, but I think they may have grown out of an milleu of anti-Semitism. Solomon Wiseman is clearly a Jewish name, though that is never made explicit, and the stories about him seem to draw on negative stereotypes of Jewish people. I add this particularly in the wake of recent events in Bondi Beach. Much of the world has come a long way in recognising past wrongs and changing what we say and how we behave to better consider others’ needs and feelings. Yet here, in the 21st century, hotel display boards pedal anti-Semitic tales while upstairs museum displays hang starkly on old stone walls, showing extreme insensitivity toward some of the country's downtrodden inhabitants.

I ordered a rare steak and was told it might take 45 minutes. It took an hour and 20 minutes, and when it came it was so overdone that I’d normally have sent it back. I didn’t have time to wait that long again. I can’t believe a chef would let that happen.