Hatch — Restaurant in Sydney

Hi team,

Just want to express our complete disappointment with our dining experience (19/12/24), mainly to do with the food and wines we encountered, the service was a 6/10 where as the food and wine was just not what a supposed 1 Hat restaurant should be. (We later found out Apparently they lost the 1 hat, 6 months after receiving it….)

Our group of 6 regularly dine out around Sydney and internationally, one of our group members is a sommelier as well.

The John Dory that was a massive let down, the first time round was tough and obviously overcooked. (No mention on the menu that it was dry aged) We sent it back and suggested the chef try the texture. The second version served was slightly better but still the skin was tough. The sauce did not go well with the John Dory.

The potatoes and chips were both so dry inside and lacked any crunch on the outside.

The octopus dolmades was a huge fail, the filling lacked any flavour and the octopus was about 20% of the filling, the leaf wrap was all that we could taste…..maybe forget the 1 inch deep oil and replace it with some seasoning within the filling?

The scallops whilst appealing in size. Lacked any distinct flavour, just a coating of oil within our mouths.

The prawn toast was flavourless without the plum sauce.

The Tomahawk - Cooked well but lacked in depth flavour of being dried aged which should have encapsulated the flavour but it didn’t. (We’ve had other dry aged tomahawks around various restaurants in Sydney and this was not what we know it could be)

The notable entrees was the prawn risoni and the focaccia.

The wine order - after receiving the entrees, we were skeptical about other dishes, so we thought we should ask for a tasting for the Tonic Shiraz and Catena Malbec. The Malbec was not from a fresh bottle, but rather, a few days to a week old.

The service was very average at best. We did not see any sequence of service, timing was not there. It was robotic, no courtesy check in at the end of entrees or mains. Only to ask, “how is the fish this time?”

The service for this 1 hat restaurant was just, take our food order, had to ask for drink order, had to ask for plates to be cleared after we piled them up (feel free to check your cameras). No one came around to offer to take an order for second round of drinks…… our waitress who was swept off her feet, had no help from other colleagues. We can see and appreciate the restaurant was somewhat busy, having to flip a couple of tables for second seating, but it was not overwhelming by any means.

The air con is inadequate for the space, it wasn’t a hot evening but we were all hot where we were seated. Yes the open kitchen doesn’t help. Our waitress told us we already open the doors to let more air in……

Not sure if this feedback will be taken up seriously, the area deserves a great dining alternative but we can’t say to our friends and family that...

Our lunch experience was completely marred by the terrible TERRIBLE disorganised service we received. Pros first - beautiful decor, was so excited first stepping in. Food was solid mostly except for the following cons: tomahawk steak came out almost well done despite medium rare request which was disappointing considering the price tag and some king prawns were slightly raw still. The better dishes were the king prawns (the ones that WERE cooked properly), yellowfin tuna whilst steak tartare, oysters and scallop were okay. However we had the biggest issue from the get go with ordering when we made it clear to the waiter we’d like servings for 7 people for each of the dishes to which the waiter said could be accommodated for. However not long after this there was already so many issues with the volume of food coming out. We received 11 oysters (instead of the 14 requested) to which they then responded saying only orders of 6 or 12 can be done.. well okay, we’re still missing 1? Not longer after this another waiter returns advising us they can in fact do 14. Okay great! However it then took another 20minutes for us to then receive these last 2 oysters… gobsmacked. Only worse from here when it became apparent that with our scallop and zucchini dish they had only prepared the standard serving (for 4) instead of the serving for 7 people we requested, so again another loooong wait for the remaining order. Throughout this, our cocktail and drinks order was coming out at snails pace, very sporadically and oddly I.e we’d order 3 of the same cocktails in 1 order but only 2/3 comes out.. and another 30mins wait to get that 3rd cocktail despite 3 follow ups by us and even 2 waiters checking on us to see if we’d had received it. In addition, we had on several times requested a DRY martini but kept receiving a dirty martini (we began to suspect our waiters just weren’t well versed/trained at all on classic cocktails)! To top it off, the waiter spills one of our girls cocktail over while cleaning, ruining the dress. When we thought it couldn’t be any worse, there was THREE errors on the bill.. over charging us for items we hadn’t received/requested. This is absolutely trash service and communication between front of house and kitchen/bar because this service is absolutely below par from what one would expect from a ‘1 Hat’ restaurant. There was little done to try and make up for the multiple mistakes and long wait times. My friends and I left pissed as heck and we all agreed this was one of the worse service experiences we’ve all had - all almost $200pp we would not...

We were bewildered how The Hatch restaurant nestled in the Humphrey Hotel were awarded one hat!

Do not believe the reviews, we did and were expecting a sensational culinary experience, but our experience left us extremely disappointed with the averagely presented food not worthy of one hat!

We deliberated over which dishes to choose with our waiter, who encouraged us to go with the set menu for two. Promising to change out dishes to ones we preferred , then to backdown on that offer.

Where do I start? Not worth the $300 we paid, as the price did not reflect expected quality, our disappointment and dissatisfaction intensified with every ensuing dish!

All starter meals arrived at once, even before we received our drinks. Our first alarm bell! What was the rush?

We then asked the waiter to ensure they slow down between dishes, which didn’t happen as the main meals arrived in the same fashion. We were feeling very much as though we were in a Chinese restaurant !

The only two dishes which were palatable were the Tuna Tartare and Ricotta Gnocchi. Everything other dish either lacked flavour, was tough or poorly cooked.

STARTERS

SESAME & HONEY FOCACCIA - was definitely not focaccia but some kind of imposter Asian sweet bread. It was actually tasty- just was not focaccia!!

BURRATA dish was sickly sweet.

GRILLED HOKKAIDO SCALLOPS were covered with breadcrumbs, served in their shell with little other flavours evident and dry.

TUNA TARTARE - was flavourful, although unnecessarily served in a baked dessert cup.

MAINS

MURRAY COD with mussels- The green lipped mussels were as their reputation -rubbery and flavourless! At least the cod was cooked well.

TAJIMA RUMP - served medium rare how we like it and we were hopeful that every piece we sample it would be better, but sadly every piece was chewy and tough.

RICOTTA GNOCCHI - the hero on the night! Tasty tender morsels.

At the end of our experience the waiter asked how everything was and we answered ‘surprisingly terrible’, to which his response was ‘Thank you’ and was not interested in why? We actually asked if he understood what we were saying! He definitely understood, but continued saying thank you on repeat.

Will we be back?...