Abla's Pastries — Restaurant in Sydney

I stopped buying from Ablas a long time ago, their Zalabiyeh and Baklava is hard like rock, and sticky that stick to your teeth like tooth filler, and its crazy sweet. unusually sweet. thus its hard like rock. The cake is awfully soggy. there is even water in the plant when they serve it. This is all in general my experience in the past 2 years ago from Granville and Merryland.. Customer service for Granville is ok, Merryland is the worst, u talk to the lady and she gave u her back, she over the phone pissed off and. I kept waiting and got serviced in a rude way. This again was my experience last 2 years thus I felt like cheap shop. I didn't leave feed back, just decided let it go, since there is many ppl who still like their sweet, and I didn't care since I'm not lebanese so I don't care to support such a business. and I don't believe in supporting business that doesn't provide quality to their client... Anyway, things changed the last weekend. I parked my car closer to Abla Granville by chance then decided to try some Kanfeh Nabolsy, I thought things might change over the last 2 year. But sadly its getting worse. there was no Knafeh, so I thought its ok I will get someone different. I got the traditional lebanese cheese sweet, and another sweet stuffed with custard..... It was miserable. the cheese sweet has ZERO flavour. it looks like poweder milk and Semolina, hard no flavour for the cheese but there is rose water. A lot of water.... The custard one was no Custard. it was again full with semolina and milk which its should not. should only be simple custard. The semolina make it hard instead of the smooth texture with the hard puff pastry layer. Anyway, this was flavour expensive compared to other sweet shop. My Drama start when I opened the custard wrapping when I saw a cute little dead insects on the side of the plate. honestly I freaked out, I got the sweet wrapped tightly by the lovely lady and put it in a plastic bag in my back seat ( not boot, even tho my car is very very clean) so no chance for insects to survive in my car. Anyway, with the way they wrapp it no way insects will go in and die there which mean it was already living between the sweet 🤦‍♀️.. I also, saw a fly around the sweet inside the shop aroundthe sweet. I told the lady but she was serving and didn't bothered. Anyway, I was disappointed and pissed off. I did try the custard from the side 😅 just so I don't regret chucking it in the bin and so when I leave my lovely negative feed back without regret for test and hygiene. If u guys this awful and pathetic please do something to yourself, look after hygienic, change the chef. I can't believe ur shop this miserable. sorry I'm not lebanese to support u, this is awfully disrespect to your clients. I even feel ashamed to serve customers this awful quality. unless this is lebanese standard. Hope my review make...

Last time I came to Abla's it was a much smaller shop, their pastries and chocolates were delicious and I loved the experience.

This time I was disgusted.

Me and my friend went in. There were 5 ladies behind the counter. One was serving the lady at the counter, the other 4 were wrapping trays. We were completely ignored for 15 minutes. We left and came back 10 minutes later. Another customer was just leaving so I was next. No one would serve us, they all just kept ignoring us. Another 15 minutes passed and finally one person came to serve us, she grabbed a small tray when I indicated I wanted to pick pastries from behind the glass (this counter has the glass so high that you can't speak to the lady you can only point so if you want to ask questions - forget it) I walked along the counter to the pastries I wanted and she just randomly chucked things on it even though I never asked for those pastries, I just looked down the counter and saw her throwing things on. While I was paying, my server was trying to serve another customer instead of taking my card and finishing with me. He told her to serve him after she was finished with me and my friend. But instead of serving my friend she went and got her mobile and called someone while she started wrapping with the other ladies. Another customer came in, they knew the ladies behind the counter so they were served straight away even though there were 3 people in front of them waiting to be served. That customer was served, paid and left and my friend still hadn't been served. Even the other customers were saying how this was getting ridiculous! We only got served because another customer told them that they had to start serving their customers.

WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE EVER! Will never be going back, even if the pastries are good. They've let their growth go to their heads.

If you want a good pastry shop try Athena Cake Shop in Marrickville, they're a Greek pastry and cake shop but they sell the same type of pastries. And they have kataifi - my favourite!

Edit: took my pastries home and just tried a baklava, its as hard as a rock, tastes nice but I'm breaking my teeth eating it.

Edit 2: I asked the lady behind the counter which sweets had dairy products in them. She said none of them. Well I am highly lactose intolerant and I got sick after eating the pastries. So I am going to say that they buttered the filo. Some places don't use butter... last time I checked, butter was a...

Extremely Disappointing Experience

I had an awful experience with Abla in Granville, Sydney. I ordered a cake three weeks before my event for a Friday pickup. A week before the event, I called and changed the pickup date to Saturday—a full week in advance.

I then drove an hour to the shop on Saturday, only to be told there was no cake for me because the staff member who took my call failed to inform the chef and cancelled my order instead.

The lady at the shop called the owner’s son, who asked me to send him the cake details and a photo of the design. He promised it would be delivered before the event, which it was but the result was shocking. The cake arrived mushed, with the wrong colour and incorrect wording.the colour of the ribbons were suppose to be red. They were hot pink. The cake mushed on the side. The writing was wrong and it was made very messy

I called the owner immediately. He said he’d contact the chef and call me back, but after several minutes with no update, I had to follow up myself. When he finally responded, he told me there was nothing he could do and offered a refund. I sent through my BSB and account number right away.

It’s now been days, and I have not received my refund. My messages and calls have been ignored since then.

This entire experience was disgusting from the terrible communication to the unprofessional behaviour of the owners and staff. I had to buy another cake on the day of the event because of their mistake.

I would never recommend Abla to anyone. Rubbish customer service, unorganised, and...