A Chef Secrets — Restaurant in Sydney

What an exceptional dining experience!

We have enjoyed many great restaurants in many counties, “A Chef Secrets” is right up there among the best.

I can confidently rate it 5-stars for food quality, presentation, service, location, view and atmosphere. Mario the owner was always in evidence and happy to advise. His helpful and polite hostess was also ever present, but not intrusive.

We were three adult family members on a Saturday evening. We checked out the à la carte menu which looked great but, after due consideration, we decided on the sharing menu – a great call as we got to sample dishes that we would not otherwise have ordered. We chose not to take the wine pairing offered but instead selected a bottle of Soho Peggy Sauvignon Blanc, which we enjoyed.

Each dish was a delight, and I could spend time describing each one in detail. However I’ll just mention my all-out winner, a dish which I’d never normally pick on a menu. This was the Short Rib MB 4+ (the MB 4+ describes the degree of marbling) This dish was truly exceptional, melt-in-your-mouth tender and with a phenomenal flavour. While not giving away too many secrets, Mario told us that he uses the best quality beef, cooked sous vide and finished over charcoal. This was simply one of the best beef dishes I’ve tasted anywhere!

Phone photos never really do justice to the dishes, but I can’t resist posting one of each of our sharing menu dishes, along with a photo the menu itself, which I’m sure changes from time-to-time.

TIP: Decide on a nominated a driver for your trip to A Chef Secret. The last several km of the road to the restaurant is extremely winding ...

Where to start with this restaurant, this is our 3rd time here and every time we come away saying we won’t go back ( This is our friends local, and they support it, so we keep hoping it will get better) This time we certainly won’t go back There was 11 of us celebrating my 60th We arrived to find we have to do the degustation menu $110 This is the first we knew about this, at no point did he let us know this beforehand and ala cart was not an option The food was very poor, and there was no main dish, all very little bits, finished off with Pasta ( which was not made on the premises ) When we were given the bill it had $179 added for surcharge, we were again not told we were going to be charged this, Surcharges on weekends are fine as long as you tell your customers upfront The very rude owner then told us we could only use 2 cards We refused, His comment just get everyone to transfer to one account was quite unprofessional, unreasonable and gob smacking outrageous He then got his waitress to do the transaction and suggested we should leave a beautiful big tip no words to this as we were all so shocked He then stormed off literally shouting at us My husband went and met the chefs and that’s when he found out they didn’t make their pasta, $110, you would expect that at least

Our poor friends were mortified

Looking at other reviews we are not the first to say this about the food and...

On a rainy weekend we were the only customers. As the other breakfast options are all in the $17-$20 range I enquire from our friendly waiter whether the ciambella donut has nutella, having become addicted to these at Bertoni in Balmain. Yes! But I really should try the sfogliatelle. We order one of each and two coffees, all of which arrives promptly. There is NO nutella in the donut. It is a cold, plain sugared donut - still quite nice but not what I expected, my partner says the sfogliatelle is OK but steals half my donut because it's so small. Our 'small' coffees on the other hand are in huge cups so they just taste like milk. The music suddenly turns up so loud we can't hear each other then when I finally start inspecting the speaker wiring it is turned back down. I don't finish my coffee (milk), go to pay and discover that this has somehow come to $22 as our mini pastries were $6 each + Sunday surcharge. I ask where the bathroom is and the proprietor doesn't even look up, but informs me the loos are "in the carpark" - about 150 meters away, in the pouring rain. Without any directions I never find the ladies and go in the Gents. Lunch might be better than breakfast but I will...