Ester Restaurant — Restaurant in Sydney

Seen on google map its high rating together with its labelling of ‘Australian restaurant’, I decided to give it a try. The restaurant appeared to be quite fully booked that even a bar seat was not available, so I sat at the corner of the restaurant away from the main dining area.

To have a taste of its wide variety of food, I ordered the set menu. The first course was fermented potato bread with kefir, salmon roe and dashi. The bread was garlic seasoned? and grilled so it’s crispy outside and soft inside. The dashi was made into jelly and salmon roe was probably marinated in wine/sake. Although the ingredients were finely prepared, the blend of their taste seemed not mixing well: the saltiness of dashi, alcohol-flavoured salmon roe and sweet bread.

Roasted oyster in chicken fat butter smelled good and the sauce was able to bring the taste of oyster to next level. Sad that it’s not oyster season and it’s small.

The third food was roasted pumpkin with parmeson cheese cream and szechuan pepper. The roasted pumpkin maybe further roasted with sugar? that made its outside crispy. The parmeson cheese cream and szechuan pepper blended well with each other to bring a brand new taste, but failed to balance the sweetness of pumpkin.

The first main course king prawn was grilled, sauce was butter and soy sauce, with lemon aside to add flavour. The sauce was outstanding that completely carried the umami of king pawn; the king pawn was super fresh and the meat was chewy. The seafood was served with sourdough for soaking the sauce. The sourdough’s outer layer was too chewy/hard to be cut by knife. Can’t see the point of adding sourdough to the king pawn as sourdough added nothing special taste to the sauce/dish.

Another main course was roast pork belly served with roasted leek on desert oak. The pork was tender and the skin was very crispy. Mustard aside as sauce made it like hong kong style roasted pork… The leek was seasoned with sweet sour cream (don’t know how to describe the taste), and it was soft to eat. For the baker’s potato, the outside was well baked to crispy, and it was full of herb flavour.

The dessert was crepe brûlée and coconut sorbet. The crepe brûlée was coated with lemon caramel, the sauce was refreshing itself but failed to show its lemon flavour on the outer crispy coating on the crepe brûlée. The brûlée tasted okay, not too sweet. The coconut sorbet was a hidden germ. It tasted completely like a fresh coconut without further sugar added, it was refreshing in the end of a full course; unluckily, they added sake at the bottom of coconut sorbet that the alcohol fully covered the natural sweetness and fragrance of the last bit of coconut.

Popular restaurant that some people did come walk-in and some took photos. Total $155 (before tips), personally think the portion and price is okay for two people, but the set menu may have failed to bring the best of restaurant to newcomers, not to mention it seemed serving fusion food but not...

This is not fine dining.

I’ve lived in Sydney my whole life, 25 years, and I’ve experienced pretty much every type of dining you can think of. I’ve been to most of Sydney’s fine dining establishments. Let me be clear once again this is not fine dining and let me explain why.

From the moment I arrived, things felt off. I had to wait 5 minutes near the door, which is bizarre for a restaurant claiming any kind of elevated experience. Not a good first impression! Once seated, the interior was ugly, for a lack of a better term, and the chairs were painfully uncomfortable, definitely not suitable for a 2–3 hour dining experience. This frustrated me as I suffer from scoliosis, the chair provided no support for my spine, making it uncomfortable and even painful to sit for any length of time.

Now, the toilets… I’m not even sure what to say about these. They’re like train station toilets, definitely not what you expect in a fine dining restaurant. I’m not impressed, and this is before the food even comes out.

The service was shocking. The waiter asked if I had any dietary requirements. I said no pork. And then… a pork dish arrives. I didn’t say anything at first, thinking maybe they’d realise their mistake. As a Muslim, being served a pork dish after I specifically request not to be served pork is inexcusable. We didn’t touch the dish. Fifteen minutes later, the same waiter comes over asking, “You said no pork, right?” I just sighed and said yes. I was already complaining to the woman I was dining with, and then this happens. Unbelievable.

Then another issue: a waitress tells me “no flash” while I’m trying to take a photo and video for her. I explained she looks stunning and I want to capture it. It made the evening feel less celebratory and it’s not something I’ve ever experienced in other fine dining restaurants, even the strictest ones allow flash content (such as Oncore) for special moments. She was really frustrated by this, she put a lot of effort into her outfit and look. And I didn’t like that she felt like this. This really baffled me. We are paying customers, we dressed up fancy to go out. Being denied felt unnecessary and honestly quite rude. It completely changed the vibe for us and left a sour taste on an already disappointing experience.

Nothing really stood out about the food, but the wagyu was probably the best steak I’ve ever had in Sydney. So at least there’s that.

I don’t drink but she said the spicy margaritas were absolutely incredible, so there’s also that. The bartender was lovely as well.

Do these two things redeem it? No, not at all.

I paid $500. I don’t feel it was worth it, I should’ve chosen a different fine dining restaurant, where the experience, service, and food are actually elevated and worth the price. What a waste of a beautiful Saturday night.

Overall I do not recommend. The restaurant is ugly, the service is shocking, and the food is nothing special. This is not fine dining, don’t be fooled. I won’t be...

In summary: One bad server ruined my entire experience, so much so I could not recommend this place despite everyone else and the food being up to par.

My partner and I had a reservation on Sunday Lunch and it was our first time eating at a more fine dining type restaurant so we were excited. We came on time and were greeted by a very lovely staff member who seated us and handed us the menus. A minute later she popped by and asked what we wanted but we had not decided so we asked if we could have more time.

Once she left, we looked at the menu and decided on the set-menu and looked around to see if anyone could serve us, so I let a waiter passing by know that we were ready to order as politely as I could. What I didn't expect was a very aggressive response in return, condescendingly letting me know that he was very aware that we were ready and that he would get to us when he could. This made me feel very foolish, thinking maybe in these kind of restaurants that you let the service come to you and that he thought that we felt like we were entitled to immediate service when we were ready. But I was more than happy to wait when he had the availability, all I was doing was letting him know that we were ready but I don't understand why I couldn't have gotten a polite but friendly "Thanks for letting me know, I'll get back to you as soon as I can".

Throughout the entire meal, such as when he was taking our drinks orders and asking for payment at the end, i could feel judgement coming from this waiter which honestly severely reduced my enjoyment for what I was initially looking forward to quite a lot. At the payment stage, the man left the card machine with me, asking me to click and work the machine to enter whether I wanted no split bill and to enter the tip myself... Is that normal? After a minute of leaving it on my table he returned and picked it up. If this is the normal etiquette I apologise but I felt some sort of malicious intent behind his entire attitude.

At the beginning I tried to understand his perspective: it was busy and his initial reaction came from being overwhelmed with things to do but it doesn't explain his attitude to us the entire time. Maybe he thought we wouldn't spend much or judged us by our age or the way we looked but it really disappointed me. It was a really shame because all of the other stuff were incredibly professional and friendly and the...