Aqua Dining — Restaurant in Sydney

Aqua dining is located on Milsons Point, next to Luna Park. Not the easiest place to find – but make your way towards the stairs leading down to Luna Park and you’ll find the entrance to the restaurant above the pool. The restaurant leads downstairs, but there is a lift if you need it. The waterfront restaurant is long and has dual rows of tables, one against the wall with couch style seats, which is where we sat, and the other near the windows. Both have incredible unrivalled views of the harbour and it is really pleasant to simply sit and admire the beautiful location. You can see the ferries travelling by, as well as the stunning harbour bridge. It simply is a marvellous location. The day we were there, it was freezing cold, and they had the heat pumped up (slightly too much), but it felt very comforting. We had a party of 9 and they took us to our table, presented us with menus and shortly took a drink order. The service here is A class. They were extremely attentive, filling up glasses, removing plates quickly and presenting the food promptly and it was completely unobtrusive. We were extremely grateful for this, and they didn’t seem to mind us handing around presents and staying there for about 4 hours. We also note the venue suits all crowds. A family had a small child there, there were business workers and a large group like ours. We went on a Sunday which is thoroughly recommended as they offer three courses for $75 (normally 2 courses for that price) and you can also BYO your own bottle of wine at $15 corkage which is a big saving for us as the diner. We like fine dining and so does my father, but our other family members such as my sister and mother are quite traditional eaters, and a vegetarian in the group and we found the menu here suits a range of eaters. It is fine dining food that isn’t too outrageous for the diner who doesn’t take a lot of risks. The food here was absolutely incredible, both in taste and presentation. They describe themselves as contemporary Italian, though to the unknown, you’d probably think it was modern Australian. Given we had a party of 9, we tried a range of different dishes. Plenty of the options are gluten and/or dairy free and some are also vegan. We sampled the outstanding sashimi version of Moreton Bay bug with chickpea and mint as well as the chilled oysters with freeze dried raspberry, white balsamic. Both beautiful seafood options. We also shared the impressively presented baked onion with tomato and smoked cheddar (gf/v) as well as the salt baked beetroot, pomegranate, goat's milk, Szechuan pepper (gf/v). Absolutely lovely. Given it’s an Italian restaurant, there’s a number of pasta dishes on offer. We tried the Risotto, with nettle, pine nuts (gf/v) and it was thoroughly enjoyed. You can select a pasta as either one of your entrée or main dish selections. For mains, we enjoyed the amazingly tender dry-aged duck breast, red witlof with pickled blackberries as well as the ever popular, melt-in your mouth beef cheek with roast pumpkin, sage, port. We had a few bowls of the crunchy roast potatoes with rosemary as well. All meal options were delicious and we could not fault anything. Desserts were also of a high standard and we sampled most including the salted caramel vacherin, chocolate sorbet (gf), the White chocolate & ginger panna cotta, lime & coconut, miso sablé and my favourite, the Pearl barley ice cream, coffee crumble, caramel. So delicate and creamy. We also loved the cheese platters. Just when you think you’re finished, they bring out some sweet petit fours! We loved our visit to Aqua Dining and certainly...

After recently buying a property in the area we were given a gift voucher for Aqua by the real estate agent, which we decided to use on Friday night just gone. Despite it pouring with rain the room was filling up and quite buzzy. Starting with food, we opted for the three courses a la carte. We enjoyed the amuse bouche bites with our drinks, always a nice touch. The three who ordered pastas for entree were happy with their dishes, as was the person who ordered the Calamari. I ordered the kingfish, which was small in size, the fish fresh but the dish lacked flavour. For main again, those who ordered the duck were happy and also the Dory. However the beef was for me a fail. One of our party had a perfect medium-rare piece and I got a medium-well which I sent back only to receive a similar piece, at this point I was over it so just put up with it. Receiving a predessert was a nice suprise and all the desserts were good. Our cocktails were nice and the winelist had enough to keep us interested. My main bugbear was the service, our main waiter was good and did his job well, those around him were sloppy at best. Firstly the food came too quickly, we had not had a chance to order wine when the entrees came. My overdone beef was replaced by another tables order, also overdone. An excuse about 12 hours of cooking was why the beef was overdone, didn't explain the perfect piece served to another diner at the table. When we pointed out that a dish had been placed in front of the wrong person this was ignored leaving us to swap the plates. Once again mains brought too soon so wine not able to be ordered. Finally the bill was brought without anyone asking for it, seemed to be rushing us, and the voucher had not been deducted from the bill. The final insult was being snubbed on the way out by the staff for leaving a smaller than standard tip and having to show ourselves out. While the food was quite good for the most part, the service let the side down, we felt rushed and did not enjoy the overall experience. 3 stars for the food...

Dined at Aqua Saturday 19/12/15. Not impressed! Very disappointed! Chose to have the special luncheon 4 course menu at $105. For entrée I chose the half dozen oysters. 4 of them tasted fine two of them did not - not their fault - blame the farming, also not very tasty. Pasta dish I chose was with calamari - not sure where the calamari was? must have swum away. Slivers that you could not even see. The small mound of spaghetti it was served with was also tasteless and only slightly warm. Main course the snapper - not sure where the potato vinaigrette was? Portions were very small. As a previous review wrote it was more "dégustation" portions. Next was dessert. The only appealing taste on the yoghurt, liquorice ice cream was the poached green apple - the size of a marbles. To their credit they did give a small surprise - a minute! salmon hors-d'oeuvre, as well as bread & butter and some tiny "petit fours" - nice touch. I paid extra for a very small bowl of rocket salad with slithers of pair $9 and black long coffee $6 that was too bitter to drink all of it. Also for an additional $15p/p we were offered a "xmas special" 1 cocktail & xmas bon bons.The cocktail was not bad although the bon bons were pretty cheap although it did make the table look more festive. When paying the bill I was asked if I would like to add a tip? The staff were not very welcoming or engaging. The girl that served us was ok as was the bar tender that greeted us when we arrived. I have worked in hospitality and I do enjoy delicious food. I am not a fussy eater and I do not mind paying $ if it is worth it. Overall, perfect location, will not recommend and will not go back. Very disappointing. Not a "fine dining" experience at all. Sorry for the poor but honest review. Keep in mind that we all have different tastes and experiences - you may enjoy it. I do still wish all the staff a very safe...