bills — Restaurant in Sydney

Bill Granger has single-handedly changed the way Australians and much of the world think about dining out for breakfast. The original Bills restaurant in Darlinghurst made sweet corn fritters and ricotta pancakes household names and his scrambled eggs were so simply delicious that Darlinghurst turned into Surry Hils and turned into the world. The breakfast menu was a game changer.

I like eating breakfast at Bills in case you hadn’t noticed. I happened to have some Japanese friends in town recently who spoke of queuing outside the Bills restaurant in Tokyo for hours waiting for the coveted opportunity to indulge in the Granger goodness. When the culinary capital of the world lines up, the world should take notice, and I took this as my cue to return to an old favourite with my Japanese buddies.

The ricotta pancakes - fluffy, richly-sauced and utterly moorish - need no introduction. Nor do the lightly indulgent scrambled eggs accompanied by the fresh side of your choice - tomatoes, avocado, bacon - each presented honourably and honestly in an open kitchen and glass pantry. The sweet corn fritters - so spectacularly understated - epitomise the Granger ode that simple cooking with fresh ingredients speaks for itself.

I should probably stop myself now as this review is beginning to sound like a requiem for a meal. But having lived within walking distance of the Darlinghurst restaurant, and now the Surry Hills venture, I’ve eaten there too many times to remember, and I’ve also eaten at nearby cafes who try to emulate the Bills classics. And it’s not that they are better or worse, it’s simply that they are not the original, the classic, the consistent.

I ventured out on this visit and got the bacon and egg scrambled egg roll with watercress and relish. It didn’t disappoint but I shall never steer clear of the Bills classics again - some things don’t need to evolve and I know this old friend is...

We arrived at Bills Darlinghurst for a lunch to celebrate Mother’s Day (on a Saturday to avoid the particularly hectic Sunday crowd). It started positively, when we ordered our food at 1:30PM. However, we were increasingly disappointed as our food did not arrive. We asked the wait staff on multiple occasions (three to be exact) when our food would arrive, and on each occasion, we were told “it’d be a few minutes”. In fact, the head waitress was arguably rude and scoffed at us, and did not bother to check with the kitchen. Clearly, we were disappointed when on each of these occasions, the food did not arrive. When we finally received our first dish, it was 2:20PM, 50 minutes after our order had been put in. By then, one would expect that the dishes would all come out together given they had ample amount of time to prepare the food. But, no. By the time the last dish was served, it was 2:35PM, a 65 minute wait.

So, given the price we had paid, we expected the food* to be delicious and filling. Wrong on both counts. The food was average at best (with most of the table agreeing the average rating for the food was a 3/5). And the portion sizes were not adequate. We spent most of the time eating simply on our phones as we were finding the quickest way to a McDonalds.

Overall, the environment of Bills was great and perfect for lunch. The coffee was also great. However, when the food takes an hour to arrive and is average at best, you simply leave the restaurant feeling as if the entire experience was a let down. We will not be dining here again.

The Chilli and prawn linguine & the short rib ragu were particularly disappointing...

I try not to write anything but positive reviews, but unfortunately this was such a time-consuming disappointment — in terms of both service and flavor — that I decided to make an exception this time. We were a party of 2. When we queued up outside we were excitedly told the wait was “no more than 30 minutes”, but it ended up taking an hour to get seated. That delay would have been fine (clearly it was a really busy day), but then, even though we ordered immediately upon sitting since we had so long to look at the menu outside, our food took another 35 minutes to come out. While we waited our waters were refilled exactly once, which turned out to be the only instance over the course of the entire meal. I was holding out hope that once the food came out we’d understand all the hype, but unfortunately we found the avocado toast far too thick and difficult to cut through or bite, as well as severely underseasoned. Once again I told myself I’d wait and see if the hotcakes would do the trick and help me understand all the talk, but sadly they were served to me cold and I found the honeycomb butter to barely taste like anything besides just butter. Another party told me they were regulars and had never seen the place quite that busy, so perhaps everything took a hit due to the crowds during Eras Tour weekend in Sydney. All in all, I was excited and wanted to love it, but I don’t think I’d recommend that anyone wait more than a few minutes to be seated as I found the entire experience rather...