BLACK Bar & Grill

Dined at Black last night with 4 others. I’ll start. By saying the food was good, not exceptional as one would expect for the price but good, and that’s where it ended…

When seated and offered water, I asked if we could have ice and a slice with the sparkling. The waitress immediately started to pour and I said no, please bring ice and lime or lemon for each glass. Her manor changed immediately and “rolled her eyes” while looking at the table, said nothing and left. We were all “wow, is it possible she needs to sell her left kidney to get us ice or a slice?” On her return, she had 2 small glasses of ice and a plate of sliced lemon. She proceeded to put the lemon slices in each glass, one guest got just the end skin bit of the fruit, and asked her for another piece. Her distaste for our table was quite obvious at that stage and we had done nothing what so ever to have earned her attitude. She then proceeded to fill our water glasses, it was a race to get your 3 ice cubes into the glass before she filled them with no regard to water being splashed on the table or elsewhere. We were all astounded and in hind sight should have called the manager over at that point. Drinks - we went through our first round of bloody expensive cocktails and ordered another. Miss attitude waitress who was genuinely not present to deal with took and confirmed our order. A new waiter around 15 minutes after the order was placed returned with all of the cocktails on the tray but only placed 3 on the table and he headed off to another table. He then gave the 2 remaining cocktails to a table further down the restaurant. After waiting around another 5 minutes, we called over a waiter and pointed out that we were missing drinks and please get them served. 9 minutes later (yes I was timing now) mine and my wife’s drink arrived just in time for the other 3 guests finishing theirs and starting to order more. Knowing how long this process would take, we ordered 5 martini’s only to be told by the waiter that we wouldn’t process the order because there were other active drinks on the table! When we finally got our drinks served, the fun at our table was rapidly becoming “just another Sydney restaurant experience”.

The delivery of our first course - a starter of two tins of caviar was delivered with uncooked blinks - still raw batter inside. Entree - scallops and kingfish, faultless however let the scallop speak for itself! It was amazing without the near for a spoonful of peas and stuff on top. We all agreed the scallops were overdressed however still delicious. The kingfish, very good.

Mains - presentation! It was embarrassing to be served near $300 of the chefs choice in a bloody (from the meat) oven aluminium pot type thing. Goodness me, so many ways this could have been served but it arrived looking like an afterthought. The others who all had steak also were left underwhelmed at the presentation - many pub meals are served better and when looking at the cost, this was now definitely “another Sydney restaurant experience”. The sides we ordered were served in Indian Restaurant style copper pans - why? What is wrong with you people!!!

The food quality of the entrees and mains was good, but with my shared plate, the aluminium pot it was served in had no heat retention so my steak turned cold in a very short period. Over half of a very expensive steak order was left behind due to being cold.

I’m hoping the manager of this restaurant takes note. With what we ate, in general the food was good, but your staff and the presentation was unbecoming of any restaurant that claims to be the best and charge accordingly.

For a $1500+ dinner (I did receive a casino discount on that price), you guys need to fix your issues as I’m not willing to spend like that again knowing the service would be a repeat of last night.

If you need a good example of how to charge high and provide a fabulous service, dine at Black Hide at Treasury in Brisbane.