Avoca Beach House Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in New South Wales

We booked a table for five adults on a Saturday evening and arrived at 6.45pm. The restaurant was very fully booked, and we had a table outside. The wait staff were understandably busy. We had two people looking after our table at various points through the night.

The first person who served us had quite a blunt manner - whilst we were ordering, he kept trying to take the menus off people who hadn't ordered yet. This is somewhat forgivable as we were ordering a lot, but a better way to deal with it would've been to ask whether we were done ordering before trying to take menus off people. We ordered starters at 7pm and asked for mains to come after, and the restaurant packed out quickly from that point onwards.

Our starters arrived at 7.20pm and we finished at around 7.35pm. When our table was being cleared, the waiter was in better spirits than before and informed us that the kitchen was backed up, so our mains may take a while. Rather than giving us an expected time frame, he said 'At least you've had your entrées though', as if to say we wouldn't starve whilst waiting? Not a smart thing to say to a group of people paying for a meal. We're paying for the atmosphere, the food, the service, everything. They're not 'doing us a favour' by helping us to avoid hunger.

It then took ~45 minutes for us to get our mains, during which time another member of staff came through to give us cutlery, and said the kitchen was really busy because a whole bunch of people had turned up at the same time. Again, not a smart thing to say. The restaurant was fully booked. It shouldn't have been a surprise that there were lots of people in there. She did not give us an estimate on how long our food would take, rather kept talking about the music that was playing and how there was a repeating sound within the song that wasn't very good. All the while, we could see tables of people who had turned up after us getting their food and even leaving before our mains had arrived.

When our food was eventually brought to us, there was a short apology for the long wait but no real explanation for why it had taken so long.

On the plus side, the food itself was excellent. We had the calamari, chicken wings, arancini balls, lamb loin, ribeye, gnocchi, risotto, and linguine. The quality of meals and presentation were fantastic, not a thing to fault about them. On a normal night, we would've wanted to try their desserts, but didn't want to risk waiting another half-hour or however long it would've taken.

Another plus - when paying, I gave the above honest feedback to the manager and he was incredibly polite and receptive. He looked through our order and the times, and was able to work out the cause for our delays. His explanation did make sense to me and I appreciated it; if his staff had had the presence of mind to come and explain the situation to us like that whilst we were waiting, we may have had a different opinion about our wait. However, we were instead left wondering why our table seemed to have been forgotten.

When we come back this way in future, we may well call in again. We will probably book a table inside next time as it was quite breezy outside. The quality of the food combined with the politeness and humility of the manager went a long way towards softening our...

Disappointing Experience for NYE Lunch

We were excited to celebrate New Year's Eve with friends at this restaurant, hoping to enjoy a nice lunch overlooking the water. Unfortunately, things didn’t go as expected, and we ended up feeling disappointed. First, we ordered a bottle of Pinot Gris, but they ran out of the one we chose and substituted it with a cheaper version. Not ideal, but we accepted it. Then, we were informed that they had also run out of Scotch Fillet, which was frustrating, especially since one of our group doesn’t eat seafood. They decided to go with the Sri Lankan curry rice (GF, DF) as a vegan option.. When the starters were finished, we ordered another bottle of the same wine, but it didn’t arrive until after we had finished our main courses. We waited 20-30 minutes and when we mentioned the delay, the gentleman who seemed to be the owner or manager didn’t offer any apology. Instead, he sent another staff member to bring the wine with the comment that it was "on the house" and we could take the bottle home. We declined the offer, as we don’t accept free items, but the whole experience was frustrating. As for the food, it was also disappointing. The Sri Lankan curry rice was bland, tasting mostly of coconut milk and turmeric with little depth of flavor. The dish was served with charred broccolini and asparagus, which seemed to be more of a side for the Barramundi dish, and a few pieces of pumpkin. The overall presentation and taste didn’t live up to our expectations, especially considering the location. This place has a fantastic view, but unfortunately, the service and food quality didn’t match. It could really benefit from better staff training and more attention to detail when it comes to both food preparation and customer service. Wouldn’t recommend based on our experience, though the setting...

Lunched here on Aug 6, 2025 for the first time and my husband and I agreed it was the highlight of our trip to Terrigal. We were seated on the balcony overlooking the beach and both Chloe and Sophie looked after us expertly. We shared an array of entrees and a bottle of Jim Barry Riesling and it was most enjoyable. We started with a dozen oysters - half mornay and half kilpatrick. The mornay were terrific - a creamy, cheesy sauce and really plump oysters underneath that were hot - quite often mornay anything is just floury goo on top of cold produce but the fellows here in the kitchen know what they’re doing. Then we had the duck pancakes - it had everything going for it - iconic flavours with great textures making it so mouth watering. My only preference would have been for a warm pancake but it might have compromised the work of art within! Out came crispy zucchini flowers - perfectly cooked without a trace of oil and creamy inside - truly top notch. And then a generous plate of super tender calamari with a sweet chilli sauce on the side. So good. You’d probably think we were full, but I couldn’t go past the pecan pie with malted milk ice cream and I’m so glad I made room for it! A good-sized individual pie - delicious short pastry all the way around and warm pecan filling - not too sweet but so moreish - just divine. The ice cream added to it as well (two scoops would have been perfect cause it was quite a big tart but I made it stretch). We felt the prices here were reasonable and the menu was interesting and had something for everyone. Thank you for an outstanding lunch. Will definitely return every...