Ape Cafe — Restaurant in Sydney

Used to visit here quite often when it was still under the management of “Son of a Baker”. The branding changed two weeks ago and we still decided to pay them a visit today.

Food - although they employed the same menu as SOB, quality of food dropped not just a bit. The pancake that used to be one of Sydney’s best, now turned out to be heavy and greasy, could not even finish half of the dish.

Coffee - used to be Zest coffee, now switched to Gabrielle probably because of branding requirement. It was decent, but waiting time for coffee is extremely slow. The barista seemed to either work slow, or prefer to get the endless takeaway sorted before he start making dine in orders. Took them about 15mins to deliver our first two coffees.

Service - if you are to hire someone to work on the busy weekends, at least provide them proper training??? The waitress that served us, no basic hospitality knowledge, could not wrap her brain around when we order food before ordering coffee, kept asking me “are you not ordering coffee”, “have you order any coffee” “so you haven’t order any coffee yet?” when I simply told her I would like to have the pancake. Gave her few seconds to “place the order” on her tablet, then I said “I would also want a flat white”, she recorded it down, then ask me “did you say you want pancake” Then what did you do in those few seconds at the beginning! We had 4 coffees and 1 drink in the whole dining experience, at check out, this cashier printed and ask my partner to double check our order while she could simply ask us to check it on the screen facing toward us (why do you deliberately want to waste some paper?) and fine, it says 4 coffees and 1 drink on there bill, we confirmed yes it’s correct. And she spent the next 1 min trying to reason with us that there is a coffee missing from the bill which we did not have. Well, we only had that many cups on the table, have a look yourself, check the cctv if you really wanna find out. Also we can’t possibly change your system if there is a coffee missing, it’s not on us EVEN IF that did happen, and it DID NOT happen. What is the point of asking us to double check the bill and confront us with your lack of common...

Heard about this little joint on Instagram and took notice of how photogenic the food and interior decor was in the pictures. Let me just start by saying, the first thing I noticed upon arrival was the level of customer service...it was absolutely phenomenal. As someone who works in an industry where customer service is everything, they truly took it to the next level. We were a party of 3 and on arrival, they only had a table for 2 vacant, so they allowed us to sit there (they grabbed us an extra chair) so that we could order our coffees whilst we waited for a proper table. We then couldn't decide which coffee we wanted (as there are seriously so many delicious flavours) so the owner (Marcus) was kind enough to give us a Taro Latte each on the house, as he was certain we would love it...and we definitely loved it. For food, we ordered the Pan Egg Souffle, Wild Mushroom Bruschetta and the Butterfly Pancakes. Marcus had recommended the Red Velvet Lava Cake instead of the Pancakes but as we couldn't decide on that either, he even offered for us to try the Lava Cake on the house! Honestly, such a kind and generous thing to do, which we were so so grateful for as the Lava Cake was AMAZING. All our food was cooked to perfection and we couldn't fault it. Hand on heart will be recommending this place to everyone and I will definitely be returning ASAP! Thank you Marcus (and your crew) for such an awesome...

Blackbird is an interesting spot right on the main road, ideally located for food / drinks and then a walk along the waterfront.

The ingredients of the food were definitely high quality, though the dishes themselves lacked much effort at aesthetics or presentation in my opinion. They were expensive, albeit not much different to the rest of the immediate area, but good enough that I didn't feel ripped off.

The coffee was delicious, and the latte art impressive. This definitely brought up the overall rating.

Some staff were friendly, but some clearly distracted. On arrival we asked for a highchair from one of the ladies behind the counter, and after 5 minutes standing around holding our baby we then asked one of the other servers and he brought it straight out. I'll give the original member of staff the benefit of the doubt that they simply misheard or misunderstood the request.

Speaking of mishearing, if you choose a table outside be prepared for noise! They're the best ones for those of us with prams, as the inside is a bit tight, but you are basically sat next to a busy multilane road, so VERY noisy (obviously this is no fault of the restaurant). Inside looked lovely and well decorated so I'd like to try inside next time, albeit without a pram. They also have a bar seating area overlooking the road / water which I think would be great when...