Hickson House Distilling Co. — Restaurant in Sydney

Edit: Unfortunately updating my review in response to patently dishonest counter-claims by the owners. “Our footage shows you arrived five minutes before closing which is why we were unable to serve you at that point”. If that were true, and we arrived five minutes before closing, how did our party manage to order 2-3 cocktails each in the time that we were there, as mentioned in my original review? How did we have the time for the multiple unpleasant interactions described below? If you close at 12, and stop taking orders 30 minutes prior, how do I have video, from inside, of drinks being served at 12:15? To be clear, the complaint is not that we were refused service, we were served multiple times - it’s that the staff member we predominantly interacted with was confusingly hostile from “Hello”. I don’t want to imagine they’re knowingly making false claims in a public forum, so I’ll just assume the Hickson House Team has gotten confused, and responded to the wrong unhappy customer. I wish them the best in their future attempted customer relations.

Original: I have no idea what happened in the few years since we moved city, but whoever the new bartenders are they knocked the smiles right off us. My girlfriend asked an older Asian bartender which cocktails were which as he dropped 5 drinks off. He identified a mulled wine as “the hot one that’s obviously wine” and a neat gin as “that’s the shot” and just walked off. Later she asked for a “recommendation of something cool to eat” he imitated her saying “something cool” said “kitchen’s closed, see” and walked off. Nobody exchanged a bad word with him, and everybody in our party only had 2-3 drinks each in the time we were there, and contact was always brief (I didn’t even get his name), so it wasn’t a case of rowdiness or a misunderstanding. Finally I approached him at the bar to pay the bill, while asking him about the new ‘Oyster Shell Gin’, and whether I was too late to try it. “Well yeah, it’s got oyster shell in it. And we stopped serving drinks 20 whole minutes ago, you missed out”. He had not stopped serving drinks 20 mins ago, as I’d JUST received my 3rd drink before walking up to pay the bill. I thanked him, and watched as he then delivered a tray of cocktails to a table of bankers, 15 minutes after last call. I cannot believe I was so excited to return to Hickson House, it costs nothing to treat people nicely, but they will charge $28...

Service was good but the food was extremely disappointing as most of our food were served burnt. The Kangaroo tartare was average and served with three pieces of toasts which were entirely burnt and not edible. We ordered a few pieces of the lamb cutlet which despite being tender all were served burnt. The fried cauliflower served with a nice dip but the cauliflowers were rather blant and very doughy - at times it feels like we were only eating fried plain dough. For main, we had the Rib-eye and requested for medium-done. Despite our request, our steak was served burnt throughout leaving a very unpleasant burnt bitter taste after each mouthful. Lastly, the chips with black garlic aoli has an overpowering taste of soy sauce in the aoli masking any black garlic taste, if any - something we were looking forward to tasting but left disappointed. Overall we enjoyed the ambient of the place but found the dining experience...

I visited this place on Thursday, May 15th, and unfortunately, I cannot recommend it. The bartender was extremely rude and dismissive towards my friend and me. We had just arrived and were looking at the menu, which was only in English. Since we are still learning the language, we approached him to kindly ask for a recommendation for a beer.

Instead of helping us, he responded in a condescending and humiliating manner, saying he didn't have time to explain anything. He then threw the menu on the table and walked away. We didn’t order anything and decided to leave.

This was the first time I have ever felt discriminated against as an immigrant. The manager witnessed the situation and did nothing—no apology, no accountability. It was disappointing to see such behavior normalized and tolerated in this establishment. I hope they take this feedback seriously and train their staff to treat all customers with respect...