Boilerhouse Kitchen & Bar — Restaurant in Sydney

This experience was actually laughable!

A friend of mine had organised a group of 16 of us to have High Tea for her birthday and had booked a month in advance confirming final numbers on the Thursday prior to us arriving.

We jumped on the shuttle bus and arrived at the Boilerhouse right on time for our 12.15pm booking.

Upon arrival we weren't actually shown to a table, they didn't bother with that but a group of 16 was fairly obvious where to sit so we took our seats. Within about 10 minutes we were served a glass of bubbly, apart from being served in a polycarbonate glass (definitely not glass or looking anything like the pictures on the website) it was enjoyable, we toasted the birthday girl and eagerly awaited the high tea.

We arrived at 12.15pm, the high tea stands were still not out at 1.09pm which is the last time I remembered checking my watch. Once the eventually came out the food looked reasonable, the lower plate had some very small sandwiches with cucumber and smoked salmon being the options but looked like they were made of tip top bread and were all cut oddly and just looked odd. The middle layer had some sausage rolls and some mini quiches which were brought frozen from the supermarket but tasted good. Then came the scones...beautiful looking blueberry scones which once opened we realised were not cooked through. In total we sent back about 7 scones and continued onto the sweet selection at the top which was ok but nothing amazing.

About 1.5 hours into our high tea we noted that no tea had been served. So I walked inside and asked if tea was included and the waitress had been serving us told me it was and we had to order it. Odd to have to take charge and ask how to order tea at a high tea but never mind, I asked her if she would mind coming out and taking our order. Apparently that offended her as the attitude that followed was something that was an Oscar worthy performance and she said someone else would come and take our order.

Another waitress came out and took our order, some ordering tea and a couple ordering coffee. About 20 minutes after that some of the tea started coming out, but if you think you get a teacup with your tea you are mistaken. By the time we did get tea cups we had cold tea. Some just decided to just drink out of our water glasses as it was going to be easier than confusing the wait staff that we needed tea cups to drink tea with.

The rude waitress then came out with replacement scones (probably an hour after we've sent them back) and guess what, not cooked AGAIN. But apparently that's because of the blueberries. Really? The Blueberries is why a qualified chef can't cook a simple scone? Firstly if this is a known issue take the blueberries out and check if you can bake a plain scone. And if it is the blueberries that must mean they are frozen as fresh blueberries do no release that much water. In the end we gave up on the scones and they gave up on the scones so half of us never had them.

I think we took it in a round robin to go in and complain which pretty much fell on deaf ears until Vicky (who was the most helpful on the day) took charge. At the end of the day we all said we would pay $20.00 per person rather than the $39.00 but honestly you couldn’t pay me to go back.

The worst part of the whole day was that it ruined a birthday but at least we could all share the horrible experience together.

To top it off, and by no means was this the restaurants fault but the shuttle buses got blocked by a truck that had gotten stuck on the drive down so we then had to wait about 25 minutes for the shuttle bus to go back.

High Tea is pretty hard to mess up, but the Q station takes the award for the worst high tea...

The worst high tea I have ever experienced. VERY VERY disappointing and I regret not having booked in one of Sydney's top hotels for the proper high tea experience for the birthday I organised. The high tea on offer here is way below ordinary and there is absolutely no decadence about it, as advertised. If you are after the true high tea experience with all the fabulousness that it should be this will never be the place for it. The sandwiches on offer were very basic, ham + pickles and cucumber + cream cheese. The mini quiche had a lovely pastry but a tasteless filling. The scones were like no other scones I have seen before, they looked more like fried rocks and were not up to high tea standard. The mini cakes were a mismatch of good and bad and nothing spectacular. Basically the whole thing was dismal. There was no tea served with the food and I had to actually ask for the tea once we were almost finished. AND when it arrived what a poor excuse for a cup of tea it was! A cup with a tea bag and half a cup of water! Absolutely unacceptable. I had to ask for a more hot water in order to get a full cup and was brought out a teapot of hot water! I wonder why tea is not served in teapots, they obviously have them. The waitress staff her wear t-shirts and are by no means the staff you expect to be serving a decadent high tea, most seem to not even want to be there and having to constantly ask them for more water and more tea I was made to feel was a bother to them. The Boilerhouse restaurant is more beach side take away cafe that fine dining, anyone writing a review stating otherwise has obviously not experienced anything better or had an exceptional high tea. The toilets smell very very musty and damp, not pleasant at all and there is also a tricky little step to trip you over on your way in, so beware. There is also a shuttle bus between the carpark and the restaurant which I was not told about when booking, it would have been nice to let my guests know about this ahead of time as there is a wait between busses. All in all not the fabulous high tea experience I was hoping for for the birthday party I organised. Having had friends and family fly in from interstate for this I was left completely embarrassed as this was not the high tea I had expected for all of them to experience. I absolutely do not recommend this as a venue for high tea as it is most certainly not done properly at The Boilerhouse. Not even "the view" could make up for the dreary service, the alfesco seating and the appalling food offerings, not forgetting the lack of tea which is a massive component of high tea! Such a waste time and money and I will never return. Get rid of high tea at The Boilerhouse, you have no idea what...

Wonderful location, but seems as though the "professional staff" this was self proclaimed by the rudest person i've ever encountered. We call prior to discuss Vegan and Gluten free requirements, Yes we have sweet potato ravioli among other things available, we can cater for you. Oh great! We get there ask again what is in the $28 Ravioli and again told it is sweet potato with pea purée, so good to find a place that has options. We order a few sides as well. We take delivery of the worst looking meal that looks like normal ravioli, again we ask is this gluten free and vegan? agh yes it is. then we ask them to make sure, can you ask the chef please. as it looks like normal pasta. A Waitress comes up asks us what the problem is? we explained how many times we have asked for gluten free and vegan food only to be told you ordered the ravioli every one knows this is pasta.... this took us aback. So asked is it vegan? she said no probably not. (with attitude) then we asked about our earlier conversation, she said we are professional here!!! what is going on here we are wondering, we ask her to ask the chef is it vegan and gluten free, she hits the roof telling us off for having dietary requirements. Apparently the chef has no idea what is in there foods. Clearly a cheap junk food store with no regard to customers dietary requirements and no idea about what is in their food. I would avoid for the food, but would not recommended even going there with possible the worst customers service i'd experienced. We do not drink and were not rowdy we were there for my birthday and to see family, To top it all off as we left this "professional" i think "waitress" walked out of the boiler room with plates in hand looked at us and shook her head in disgust??? i guess we were not professional enough customers. I do hope the professional waitress was having a bad day and not like that normally because i feel sorry for her.

So in my opinion if you care to be spoken to like an idiot, served expensive, bad foods and be practically yelled at for ordering the wrong thing, to be followed with more attitude when paying and wanting to get away from possible the worst restaurant experience in your life, then yeah enter at...