Alpha Dining — Restaurant in Sydney

My colleague and I visited Alpha last week, and I’d high hopes of a positive dining experience given what I’d heard and having watched a few episodes of the Chef Line on Netflix featuring this restaurant. I ordered the chef’s signature dish of moussaka with scallops, but had asked twice (not once) whether the scallops are fully cooked given my raw shellfish allergy. I was promised that they would be. When the dish arrived, I was in awe of the presentation and how juicy the eggplant looked, but the scallops, while cooked perfectly for many, were certainly and dangerously undercooked for me, and would most definitely pose a serious aniphylactic risk. So, I did what anyone would do in my situation, and requested for the scallops to be cooked thoroughly in order that, well, in order that I wouldn't die! I didn't need the whole dish to be recoiled, just the scallops and I’d relayed exactly that to the waiter. Puzzled, he took my dish away and then returned in less than a minute and said "No, this cannot be done. This is the chef's signature dish. It must be as the chef intends it to be cooked, served and consumed." The waiter even brought me a new menu and suggested I order something else. I said no, and let him know that I’ll just eat the eggplant and leave the scallops untouched. I expressed that it’s unacceptable to be so arrogant to prioritize a signature dish over the health and safety of their customers and the safety and reputation of the restaurant! Cue the restaurant's haughty manager's arrival, talking down to me, requesting that I do not eat the moussaka without the scallops (because it’s not how the chef intended the dish to be), and aggressively insinuating that we might be more comfortable in another restaurant while gesturing to the door. Let's make this completely crystal clear. Restaurant Alpha and Chef Conisitis and his chef line would rather potentially kill one of their customers than slightly alter their signature dish. Many may adore this prima donna's cooking. And I daresay that, without any lethal allergies, I would agree with them. But this chef, with his unfriendly, rude and arrogant troupe of front-of-housers have ensured that, not only will I not be returning, but will also be spreading the word about my and my colleague’s appalling experience with this precious, chef-centric, snobbish and unwelcoming establishment. Nonetheless, the afternoon wasn't a total disaster. My colleague and I luckily discovered the wonderful Ribs and Burgers round the corner. Wonderfully cooked and thoroughly satisfying hamburgers were had by all and put big, burgery grins...

Truly a terrible experience. I first came to this restaurant a year or two ago and the service and food was fine. I decided to return for my 30th birthday celebration which I had booked in advance for myself and 5 others. When we arrived at the restaurant they were quick to tell us we only had 2 hours before we had to leave. I’m not sure when this time frame came into place at restaurants but there is nothing more rude or more unwelcoming than being told you need to leave within a certain time frame especially when you are celebrating an occasion. Eat, pay, leave. If I wanted fast food I would have gone to a McDonald drive through. People come to a restaurant to enjoy their time and have an experience not to quickly eat and rush out the door.

Our entrees came out very quickly and before we even had the chance to finish them, they started packing the mains on our table. Another way to rush us out the door. When two of my guests mentioned everything was coming out too fast and we hadn’t finished our entrees yet, they said sorry and walked away. I had to call the waitress back to remove the food and bring it back when we were ready.

The mains were extremely dry and bland.

Toward the end of the night, we paid the bill of $483 and a waiter came over and told us we had to leave. We waited for our change for some time and the waiter returned to tell us we had to leave yet again. I told him we had been waiting on our change all this time. I watched him walk over to the till and to my surprise they had completely pocketed our change and had no intention of returning the $17. To think the experience we provided was worthy of a tip is laughable but an absolute disgrace to the restaurant to just assume we even wanted to tip them.

It was really quite embarrassing for the restaurant and all the staff. We will never return after such a...

I came here to celebrate my friend's birthday (she chose the place) We were greeted by two really friendly staff at 7:30 pm and the waitress was pretty helpful at the beginning, ordered our entrees to share (as she recomended) they were tasty but not something really special, the bad situation was when we have to wait for more than one hour to get our main meals, during that time we finished our whole bottle of wine the tables next to us came ordered, ate and leave. The first 30 min of wait was acceptable and reasonable, but after that time the waitress just decided to don't approach to that table not even to let us know how long we had to wait for our food, tried many times to make visual contact with her in order to catch her attention but nothing happened, when I went for her to ask about our food she came to the table we told her "it's been 45 min we are waiting we have a reservation in another place at 10:00 pm" and she said "are you in a hurry are you going some else???.... it's only 9:00 pm" then she left. After 15 more minutes, we received our food, by that time nobody was in the mood or hungry anymore, to be honest, I didn't enjoy the food as I would have if this had come on time.

In conclusion, the food was ok but is not something impressive, the atmosphere is pretty nice and I think that things like delays on orders could be much better managed than just leave a table waiting for their mains 1 hour with...