I ate at Nor'East for the first time last night - lovely setting, quite nice interior (albiet one cant help feeling that one is in a different section of the Brewery) promising menu and fairly decent wine list with a good range in price. Food wise, the meals were good - I had the "Assiette of house butchered suckling pork, pickled kohlrabi, slaw, sweet apple puree, calvados jus" $34 and my wife had; "Confit organic duck maryland, sautéed enoki mushrooms, wakame seaweed, chilli king prawns, dragonfruit vinaigrette $30" As you can see, the fine dining feel is there but (and fairly representative of the experience) something is missing. For example - the "slaw" was fantastic, creamy with a surprising hint of honey, but Slaw? Odd choice of name, given it's surrounds. As is "duck Maryland". What's wrong with thigh? Dunno, for me it conjurs images of crumbed deep fried chicken. In case this all sounds a little petty, the fine dining tag was diminished most notably by the waitstaff - they were very friendly and attentive, but didn't know the wine list, forgot a drinks order and then actually asked if we wanted our wine after our food had been on the table for 5 minutes. Yes we would like the wine that we ordered specifically to go with our dinner, to, you know, come with our dinner. Perhaps I'm being too harsh, but then again Nor'east is positioning itself as a fine dining establishment. My pork was so close to being excellent, that I want to be more critical than I should. It was done 3 ways, which is cool but 2 of them seemed kinda the same. Maybe they weren't intended to be 3 ways, but then why present the dish in 3 small portions? It certainly looked the business, and the pickle was lovely, as was the jus.
All in all the value, was great - perhaps this is where Nor'east is confined, it may not be possible to create a truly fine dining experience while only charging $30-40 for a main - and it was a pleasant night. I think some wait training and a few tweaks on the menu would take this place to the next level. Maybe dim the lights a little too.

Approximate cost: $35 - $45