The Rising Sun Hotel

Best restaurant meal we've had in a pub in a long long time. Nice atmosphere, genuinely friendly staff and enough to take home for lunch tomorrow

Beautiful service amazing service highly recommended it. Xxx Amazing place guys! Keep it up!!!

We visited during the Clare Valley Gourmet Festival opening weekend, and so it was pretty busy. We only managed to book for the Sunday evening (must book well in advance!). We hired mountain bikes from them, and booked over the phone - despite a few missed calls initially, it was a pretty easy process. We also booked for dinner, which was delicious and served up quickly. The choice of drinks was also above average for a small town pub/hotel. The other patrons and locals were friendly and had a great sense of humour. I genuinely enjoyed the stay here. The room looks like it used to be two rooms with the separating wall removed, and one of the rooms was converted into a private bathroom. Other hotels built in the same time period often retain the two bedrooms and have a communal bathroom instead (double the number of bedrooms). At this particular hotel, they joined the rooms, and so I wish they had a door separating the bedroom and bathroom - didn't really need to hear your partner/family pooping :)

This place is really lovely. I stayed in one of the superior cottage rooms. It is gorgeous. Lots of breakfast items for me, even fresh coffee with a plunger. The staff arw very nice and helpful. I felt the fee very reasonable. The meals are to die for also the jom barry reisling...yum I would've to see me hooks in bathroom also another table as there is very limited space to put your items and hard any room to make up your breakfast. Overall though, a smashing place!

By revisiting this post that I have written back in last year, 2020, I have noticed that it has been rated as a 4.2 stars by local Google food guide and it says “3 stars Hotel?” THIS IS DEFINITELY NOT RATED BY ANY EPICURE. Specially by “the King of Chef or the Chef of King Society internationally”. I am extremely concerned. I wonder who rated that?? Also, is this been paid to rate for it??? Reason why I said that is according to the Escoffier International Standard, only a certain constitute can rate for this. Regardless of which ever the organisation, Escoffier is the only affective one due to the standard. Escoffier’s Society is a non Commercial & non Profit charity organisation that we rate places according to their deserved rating. By the experience that I have been through myself as a Australia Chapter Chairman, I am in a great concern over this. The following story was truely the experience that I have been through; We came from Adelaide and had a long drive. Passing Auburn and saw a Hotel and I felt for a drink. Stopping by and trying to have a quick meal with my wife. We sat down and had our order put through, the waitress was disgustingly rude to try to scam us to order 2 main meals for 2 people Instead of one main meal and an entree of Bruschetta. We were told that a couple of husband and wife are not allowed to order our meals and share due to the reason we are small eaters?? She then went away and asked her boss and came back to tell us that the boss said “It is ok but not ideal”. What is ideal means? We are the customers and we are not there to beg for food. We order what we want to order and we eat what we want to eat. Also, it is not by laws that people can’t share and order a main and an entree as a couple of husband & Wife. There is no such a statement in the COVID 19 Food Hygienic regulations to stated that. I am a Restauranteur and a Chef for the last 37 years in Hospitality. I have never heard of such a bad service in my life. When the seafood Trio and the Bruschetta came, the fish was so oily and dried that the oil dripped out. Plus the Focacia bread from the Bruschetta was so stale and dried, I would not even feed my dog with it, yet we were Served with it. The Coleslaw as a side salad was done so badly that I would not even give it out to any human being. By going through the Male toilet, Talking about germ and hygiene, the facilities are all rusted and still be able to serve the public. I would not even look at the kitchen and see what is in there. Even though it is a country side pub, I believe this is not acceptable plus scamming customer like that is definitely is nasty and greedy. Not recommending to anyone to go there plus I would definitely highly recommend the Health Inspector to revisit the site to evaluate. Today, 13/5/2021, I have finally and appreciatively received a response from the Owner of this Hotel. However, just to correct the statement on the reply, the COVID rule does not imply on the sharing plate between a “COUPLE” which means 1.5 m social distancing does not apply to this situation within the same table. At the same time, the waitress told me that we could not have a entree with a main meal for 2 people dinning within a table under a 2 square meter apart. We had to have 2 main meals on the table or a entree with 2 main meals. She said this is the COVID regulations from the government. She was trying to forced us to have 2 main meals or more as if the pub is only worried “money”. Didn’t want to know anything else. Not an appropriated answer. FOR YOUR INFORMATION ONLY: Just to let the owner to know that Escoffier is a charity Society internationally to memorised the King of Chefs or the chef of Kings “George Auguste Escoffier” to keep up the food and service standard for the Society to ensure publicity are getting the best treatment while they are dinning out. Values for money. We all are knighted by the King’s honoured to serve the Society on our own wills as a charity willing. We are truly defined what is the stars rating should be.

Don't go here expecting pub food because it's so much better than that. This is restaurant quality menu really well executed. A meal is not just a piece of fish or a steak, it's a real meal with interesting salads and vegetables that come as part of the meal not as a separately ordered 'side'. So meals here are good value as well as excellent quality. Some of the usual pub things are on the menu but also some more modern dishes where the chef really gets to shine. Expect steak cooked exactly as ordered and fish cooked perfectly and everything looks great on the plate. Service is also excellent but not in any pretentious way. Staff are friendly and helpful as well as knowledgeable about the menu and the wine list. Wine list favours the local area as you would expect and our waitress was able to discuss the differences between various wines on the list to identify a wine which would suit our individual tastes. She was spot on with her assessment of the wine we chose. Overall, this hotel is right up with the top hotels in SA.

Very nice place to eat and have a relaxing time

Your typical country hotel, circa 1850, with strong CHARACTER & olde world charm & ambience. The publican, Mick, was accommodating, an absolute gentleman where nothing was too much trouble. We stayed in one of their cottages, small & endearing, but comfortable & excellent value with a continental breakfast provided. Lunch proved excellent as were the staff & service, good value & loved our table by the fire. We thoroughly enjoyed our experience, all a pleasant surprise & would easily recommend one tries this establishment. We will come again. Cheers.

Great food, wonderful staff and owners, and fantastic atmosphere. Highly recommend coming for a bite to eat. Would advise booking a table on weekends so you don'tmiss out.

Disgusted by our whole experience today. Incredibly rude old lady who treats customers as an inconvenience. Really unimpressed, food also fairly bland but could have been forgiven with nicer service. To be honest, have to assume she's also a racist as we had a number of Asians in the group and didn't see anyone else treated with the same disrespect. Chef had a complete swearing tantrum while we were there, all of our kids got to hear a tirade of F-bombs. A lovely family outing!