Barrenjoey House Palm Beach — Restaurant in Sydney

If I could explain my experience in one word, it would be the word 'lousy'.

Great location, and the decor was great, so I won't give 1 star. However, even though the staff weren't rude, they seemed pretty inexperienced. Reason being they weren't attentive unless it's your birthday (had most of their staff singing happy birthday whilst the rest of the tables left unattended) and it took too long for anything to come to the table. Whether it be the entree, drinks, the main meal, or deserts.

Just to put it persepctive. We decided what to eat in about 5-10mins, and it took us, from entree to desert, about 2 and a half hours to get through all that and ask for the cheque. This calculates at around an average wait time of 35 minutes per course. Mind you, we only order one entree. The table wasn't fully decked out with food. Only one piece of crab toast took that long.

Pretty much, most of it was just waiting. Waiting to be served and waiting for the food to come. Eating took around 10 or so mins each course, and so did the drinks.

No one explained the meals properly either. Tables weren't cleaned efficiently as you would expect when you're paying around $40 per dish.

The odd thing about this is that when i woud walk into a cheap thai restaurant, they would straight away give you glasses and water. You come over here, pay three times the price and still have to get off the chair, find someone, get in their face (because they look away when you try get their attention) just to ask for a jug of water, which should be a normal expectation to have that provided once seated. A cheap Thai shop understands. How come a high-end restaurant is still trying to learn this?

Also, the food selection could've been more ample. There's not much to choose from. Maybe 5 mains or so (at least it won't take too long to choose a meal). To top it off, it took them longer than usual to clean the table, and once they cleaned it, they still left dirty cutlery there until the time we asked for the cheque and left.

All negativity aside, great venue when it comes to ambience and style. Location, absolutely fantastic. Staff...questionable and pretty much makes it not worth going.

This place would probably not last too long if there was more competition in the area. Lucky for them, the venue has maybe 1 to 2 competitors in the area. Otherwise, I see a change of ownership for the place real soon.

I hope management can really sharpen up this place. All it takes is properly trained staff and a slightly bigger menu and then, this place would be 5 stars...

My partner and I have been coming to Barrenjoey House every few months for approximately 6 years now. It's a lovely place for lunch and dinner and we were very much looking forward to the refurbishment of the business.

We visited your restaurant on the 27th of December and were delighted with the changes to both the menu and set up of the place. The service was lovely, and staff were polite. Despite this, I have a complaint to make on behalf of people with coeliac disease who come to your restaurant.

I suffer with coeliac disease. And it is wonderful to see a menu that is clearly marked out with appropriate dietary requirements. I worked in hospitality for many years and my partner is a head chef at a cafe, so we understand it is hard to enforce a completely 'guaranteed' gluten free kitchen. HOWEVER, I believe that you run the risk of doing injury to someone by marking out items as GF that are not.

I told our waitress about my coeliac requirements and asked about the Fried Calamari that is marked as GF. She politely asked 'how gluten intolerant are you?'. This is an absurd and embarrassing question. There should be no delineation between 'how gluten intolerant someone is' as to whether they are effected by oil or a surface shared with items made with gluten. It is as simple as YES- this item is safe for everyone with this disease, or NO- this item is not in fact gluten free.

I know that many restaurants function with these same rules of marking something as GF based on ingredients, and then using a contaminated work area to prepare it. However this needs to change. My chef partner for instance, dedicates one side of a fryer to only gluten free products in order to prevent contamination. It is one simple way to prevent causing significant harm to someone who's gluten allergy may in fact be a severe or anaphylactic one.

I wish to gain nothing by this complaint. I only hope to raise awareness of this...

I hate doing bad reviews and I feel bad about doing this one, but I just want to avoid people having a similar experience to us. I had eaten at Barrenjoey House recently - but just a couple of plates sitting outside on a Friday lunch and it was perfectly pleasant and acceptable. Last night Hubbie and I were looking for a romantic, high end place for a special evening and my older memories of BH were that it was just that - high end, special, sophisticated and worth dressing up for. Our experience last night did not reflect those older memories of how BH used to be. The service was excellent - from the male maitre d' who greeted us, through to young Jess who served us. Excellent, friendly, accommodating and professional service. They were let down by back of house unfortunately. We ordered the kingfish sashimi and, no word of a lie, either me or hubbie could have put together a better dish. The kingfish was coarse, thickly cut, warm and looked like it had been dropped onto the plate from a height, rather than artfully arranged. Hubbie's hot dish of scallops featured lukewarm, fairly tasteless, boring scallops with a smudge of tasteless pumpkin puree. Below average. His steak was marginally better and my Murray cod was overcooked and tasteless. Worse than the flavour are the prices. BH may have decided to go a bit more downmarket - think your local mexican restaurant with flaming candles and staff singing happy birthday multiple times (it's owned now by the Boathouse group), but they didn't bring the prices down with them. If I'm paying $18 for a tiny side dish of charred broccolini or a couple of tomatoes on a plate, then I want the upmarket experience that goes with those prices. Go to Rosa in Mona Vale instead if you want tangy, fresh flavours and equally excellent service. Don't get the view or the ambiance, but I'm all about the food and Barrenjoey House just doesn't deliver...