Beast&Co — Restaurant in Sydney

Came here to do the bottomless brunch for my birthday because of the good reviews but was shocked by the food and experience. The food was average and the drinks were barely what you call "bottomless".

Btw it seems like this restaurant hides some of their low rated reviews because my friend also left a review and we can see it when shared but you can't see it publicly.

I also already wrote an email to the owner to provide feedback on the experience, instead I got a condescending reply from the owner justifying all her actions and taking absolutely no accountability plus she constantly lied and accused our group of things that weren't true.

To sum it up:

Food was bland and average, portions were small for sharing between 2 people. One of the plates looked like cat food served with a sprinkle of Maccas french fries and the chicken was raw and undercooked. The owner's reply to this was something about her head chef working in michelin guide restaurants so they know what they're doing. Ok, and? Pretentious much. Your food was still poor, just admit it and apologise rather than making excuses.

2 hours of bottomless drinks only went for 1.5 hours as they did last call for drinks 30 mins before which doesn't make any sense. The owner reckons we got 6-8 drinks per person but I calculated the next day based on the receipt and from asking my friends how many drinks they had and it was averaging at about 4 per person which is simply ridiculous.

The service was so poor and unattentive we had to constantly ask to get our drinks refilled hence why most people only had about 4 drinks because it was taking 20-25 mins for each drink to come which doesn't make sense as they're simple drinks and not fancy cocktails. This is not like other bottomless brunches ive been too where they have someone constantly refilling your glass. It was the owner and another waitress handling the whole restaurant and you could tell they could not handle a large booking, and the waitress seemed very overwhelmed and didn't know what she was doing. If this is the case, the restaurant should not take large bookings if they cannot handle them.

The seating and atmosphere was so awkward, I specifically asked for the tables to be together in a row for 21 people which the owner agreed to, instead we were sat in 3 separate tables with about 6 people each which made it so awkward to mingle as the whole group wasn't facing eachother. The owner's reply to this was because I changed my booking to 19 people but I don't see how this changes the arrangement? If anything it made it easier and it's not that hard to put tables in a row.

The owner also accused us of breaking glasses in the bathroom when actually I already saw the glasses in the bathroom before they were broken and told my group to be careful and I also let the waitress know.

Better value going elsewhere, I'm sure the owner will reply with excuses again but I'm not really interested just trying to warn others. I hope this restaurant can learn from their mistakes...

We wanted so much to like Beast & Co because it is a beautiful room with a nice buzzy atmosphere and we felt that the waitress cared but perhaps not just a little over enthusiastic. As soon as we finished our entrees the waitress asked us how did we like our food, unfortunately we didn’t like it much and were put in the spot, so we felt a little awkward.

The word “pickled” should have really been put on the menu in the description as the Blue Mackerel tasted much like pickled herring, it was very briny, tasted ‘uncooked’ and very fishy! I love mackerel but not in pickled style, You might like this dish if you are into pickled fish. The pickled cabbage and onions, the rye toast also didn’t have good flavour. As a whole it was under seasoned and didn’t have a good balance of flavour.

The Duck Croquettes was quite bland and lacked flavour too — the duck has completely disappeared into the puree and again well under seasoned, overall the taste was just pretty underwhelming.

The waitress was shocked when we told her we didn’t like the entrees but she was very nice to take the croquettes off the bill when my partner told her we didn’t like the flavour, which she really didn’t need to.

We really want to like the Pork Belly too but again let down by its flavour but most of all its cracklings.

First the good: the layer of fat under the crackling was very well done. The layer of fat just melt away in your mouth and meaty layer was tender. However it again tasted under seasoned and the flavour didn’t taste spot on even with the jus.

Now the disappointment: The crackling is make or break for this dish. We understand that to get a crispy crackling you need to use a lot of salt to achieve it. Unfortunately the crackling tasted way too salty and difficult for us to enjoy. Not only that, it’s only the top half layer of the crackling that was crispy, but the under layer of the crackling was still undercooked, very tough and chewy! We couldn’t cut the cracklings into smaller pieces even if we try. The crisps seemed sweetened, they were ultra thin but not very crispy either. Tasted more like sweet potato crisps and not our favourite. The celeriac purée tasted fine.

All in all we were left very disappointed and we didn’t want to tell the waitress a the second time we didn’t like the food when she come back to ask if we liked the pork belly.

The side of roasted vegetables was...

Hi, we booked our valentine dinner to the Beast & Co. and we were quite excited for the dinner, the menu looked really good. When we arrived there was a queue so we sit after 20 min our reservation, however they were very sorry because apparently many people with the booking were late, no big deal for us. We order our valentine menu and the cocktail and the entree came quite quickly but one of the entree the fish crudo took 20 min or more to arrive to table. Few couple sitting close to us order the same and they got our fish crudo before us even though they were sit 15 min after us, we called one of the waiter a girl and I asked info about the delay and she just said very dismissive that the crudo take always longer without even be sorry for the delay, but other table had before us. 5 min after we asked to another waiter that actually gave us an apology and finally we got our crudo and our mains. When the floor manager came to ask if everything was fine we said that we wait so long and we were there already for over 1 hour, I understand if you are busy but at least you need to be nice with your customers and not be dismissive or avoiding the problem. After the mains they removed the plates and they gave us the desserts like one second after not even at least 5 min after the mains was really weird we felt not welcome anymore to be honest, so we had to wait with our desserts in front of us for at least 5 min before to dig in and obviously was melting in front of us. In my dessert i got a pit from the preserved cherries that was not suppose to be there and almost broke my tooth and when I told the floor supervisor to be careful when they serve that for next time she just answer "ah ok I will next time" not even sorry. Food was good but service is a big no sadly we are not coming back because we felt not welcome not looked after and they can not handle the floor with customers. There was not even a discount on the bill even though took almost 2 hours for our dinner. The experience was not...