National Hotel Complex Bendigo

Being great value, we decided to call in for a meal at the Bistro of The National, a very large accommodation venue with many function, meal, and drink areas. The service was quick, the parma came with a choice of salad/vege and chips, and it was very tasty. The staff were friendly, efficient, and professional. What more can you ask for? Well done to the National team; we shall return.

I have dined at the National Hotel Restaurant many times with family, friends, and clients, and it has consistently been an excellent experience. The food is always fresh, delicious, and generously portioned, offering great value for money.
One thing I particularly appreciate is the variety on the menu. The restaurant continually introduces new cuisines and dishes, which keeps every visit interesting. I suspect they have talented chefs from different culinary backgrounds in the kitchen, as I often tried something different each time I visited, and the food never disappointed.
The restaurant is always busy, which speaks volumes about its popularity with local customers. Despite this, the staff and management remain friendly and attentive. The atmosphere is warm, welcoming, and suitable for both casual family meals and business gatherings.
I highly recommend the National Hotel Restaurant to anyone looking for great food, excellent service, and a consistently enjoyable dining experience. I will definitely be returning.

My husband and myself went to the National today for lunch. We both had problems with our meals. My husband had grilled flake and he said that it was like rubber. I had the cutlets and they were tough. Very disappointing as we have always like the National. I hear that it has been taken over recently. 8/6/26

Worst dinner experience of my life. We attended for a family 18th birthday party. Staff struggled to speak English. I waited over an hour for cocktails for my wife and I (a trend that continued through the evening), despite following up multiple times. Ended up writing our order down so that they could understand. Ended up going to canned drinks. My Moroccan Lamb was served stone motherless cold. The icing on the cake was my daughter’s meal coming out 20 minutes after everyone had finished eating. Never, ever again.
EDIT TO RESPOND TO OWNER –
To the owner, in response to your reply.
Thank you for acknowledging my feedback. I understand that you also offered Stacey a $50 voucher if she was able to get me to remove my review. I thought I'd take the opportunity to mention my disappointment that the 18yo's birthday cake was presented to the table still in it's box. Stacey needed to sit in front of the birthday girl and place the candles and topper on the cake, and remove it from it's box herself before we could sing happy birthday. The cake had to be cut on the silver board it was packaged in, and we then had to eat the cake with our hands using napkins, because your establishment was fresh out of plates and cutlery. I will also mention that I saw the cake coming and had to ask your server to first clear the table of dishes, seeing as all 14 of our plates (and the glasses we were lucky to receive) were crowding the table.

Booked the bistro for a large family gathering / birthday celebration & was thrilled to find we had our own room. Service was excellent, everyone’s food arrived super fast, beautifully cooked & fresh, facilities were extremely clean. Kids eat for $5 on Sunday lunch. Could not recommend highly enough — many thanks to the team, we will definitely be back!

The motel facilities rooms staff should absolutely be rated 5 star. So clean they could not make us feel more welcome ensuring all our needs were met 👏👏👏👏🙌
However the meal we had in the restaurant was absolutely awful pork belly had layer of fat NOT CRACKLE… my friend’s steak was overdone +++++ so tuff considering asking for medium vegetables very basic 😗
Lack of communication with Japanese? Staff was terrible could not understand what we were trying to order making us feel very frustrated…other staff were excellent…. BAR staff were great very informative … going out for dinner was the only thing wrong 😑

Why 1 star:
— Long Wait for drink, even though they have plenty of bar staff talking about their shifts!
-Got a plastic in Caesar salad, I reckon while opening takeaway container, it broke.
— Wait staff angrily serving meals as if we disturbed her. Same waitress was vaping outside.
If business is under New management, maybe they should have a look and offer staff a refresher, re-training. I can see the floor staffs serving meals on wrong tables and customers getting frustrated.
All the best for the future.

Great to see a hotel offering value lunch meals. A selection of lunch meals for $24.9, including drink. It can go wrong. Plenty of parking available.

Used to be such a great venue. Order a dozen oysters (very pricey for what the are) as well as a seafood platter and a caesar salad.
After taking over half an hour for the food due to them getting confused with a staff employee number and thinking it was for them. The oysters are tiny and not worth the money. About 5 minutes later entree arrived, the oysters for the seafood platter were burnt and the Ceasar salad had more ham than the rest of the plate (yes ham, not bacon) and all of 4 croutons.
Poor service. Poor care. And with some of the staff, poor attitude.

The lunch special was just $24.90, including main and drink. The food was amazing. Our whole table enjoyed no complaints about any meal five star ⭐️

This place was extremely nice and professional. It was probably the best calamari that my husband has had and my grandson’s burgers were great too. So was my Thai beef salad.

Last night (03/01/2025) I held my 21st in one of the function rooms, and I just wanted to say thank you to every single staff member who worked and made it what it was. We all loved the food, the drinks and the amazing staff who worked so hard to accommodate to the rest of the party goers! everyone was so welcoming and so nice to chat with whenever we had a question or a request while we were setting up to cleaning and collecting our left over decorations.
I cant stop recommending hosting a function at the nash to everyone I know, it is truly an amazing experience. Thank you so so much guys!

We had my niece's 30th birthday with 80 people out there, and it was a very happy and relaxing night and everyone had a great time.

We were part of a large group, meeting for lunch. The ordering and delivery of meals needs a huge overhaul. Why aren't names taken when meals are ordered? Couples who ordered together had separate meals as others claimed them when they were delivered. The meals are excellent but this problem needs to be addressed.

Lovely experience for lunch. Carlton Draught on tank which went down very nicely! Selection for lunch was plentiful. We had lamp shank and the roast pork, which were really well cooked and generous sizes. Staff were super friendly! Will definitely come again for lunch!

We had an accessible room that was so spacious and very happy. The hotel itself was excellent, the restaurant was very good, the meal we had was so delicious, and the Happy Hour was fantastic. From the reception staff to all the other staff were excellent, and we had a great meal. Great Time!

Popped by the National Hotel for lunch on my way back to the city and was pleasantly surprised to find a lunch special which included a drink which was affordable and fair. I ordered the gnocchi carbonara and was very happy with the meal. Portion size was more than enough with a skinny latte for my drink. Super friendly service from all the staff and highly recommend for a good lunch date.