Swordfish Wine Bar & Tapas — Restaurant in Melbourne

I'm definitely not one to complain but our most recent experience at Swordfish was absolutely disgraceful. We had booked for after dinner drinks with 5 of us. One of the girls was pregnant and had to leave after about an hour, she had ordered and paid for a drink but gave up waiting for it after 15 minutes. When she was leaving the lady at the bar rudely commented that she was leaving too early. When the rest of us stood up to leave an hour later, the same lady came over and was so angry and she was pointing her finger at us like little naughty school kids and said how dare we stay so long and not order food or spend enough money on drinks. It was in front of the whole restaurant which was extremely humiliating with everyone watching in disbelief at how rude this woman was being. She also followed us out the front, still angry about us not spending enough money. If we had been made aware of a minimum spend, or told we had to order food with our drinks at the time of booking (or even when we arrived) we would have either gone elsewhere or stayed for another drink, but at no time this was mentioned.

We understand minimum numbers post lockdown, but we are not going to be forced to sit there for a two hour max sitting and throw back drink after drink. We would have been happy to sit outside, but again, nothing was mentioned so we thought we were welcome to sit and...

Nice vibe to the venue. Staff need training. Owner and kitchen hand both assume they can do no wrong, yet they’re rewriting a narrative by claiming there was a single group in the outdoor area. If they could take a booking properly they may have noticed we booked and were unrelated to the larger group they sent all these “freebies” to.

Bar tender unable to read bottle labels, had to wait while they worked out where each of their ciders were kept. Outside the fridge, apparently as I received a glass full of ice to chill the drink. Some food was great, no complaints with the popcorn chicken I had. Pizza bases are supermarket brand and average. A sliced dinner roll with minced garlic dumped out of a jar isn’t what most people expect when the menu says “garlic bread”.

Maybe better communication between the bar and kitchen for food orders and staff looking for the table number instead of wandering about and handing food to the first person that claims it would work better. But after 10 weeks in maybe the business will run better...

Came here for a New Year's Eve event. The bartenders tried their best and I think given the circumstances they did a great job, but it seemed the venue had not organised themselves properly for such a busy night. Service was very slow and plagued with technical issues (fridge lights went out so bartenders had to use their phone torches to see the drinks, ATM machines weren't working for a period of time, and for some reason the price list wasn't available so the bartenders didn't know the prices of some drinks). Took over 1 hour from arriving to get water and drinks. Also my group were disappointed that even though we had purchased tickets we were seated approx 0.5 metres next to two massive speakers, which made conversation impossible. After much discussion we were then moved to a temporary makeshift table. Honestly I felt a bit embarrassed for...