Holy Basil Darling Square — Restaurant in Sydney

NOT kid friendly: Asked by staff to NOT use their bathroom for my 1 year old.

I will start by saying I have never left a negative review at a restaurant before. I feel compelled to share this story so other parents do not need to have the same awful experience.

I dined there with my 1 yo 2 days ago. Towards the end of meal time, we took baby to the restaurant bathroom for a nappy change. As soon as we entered the bathroom, a staff member followed us into the bathroom and said there are public toilets situated outside the restaurant in the Darling Square vicinity to change baby's nappy, especially noting that they have "change tables there but not at the restaurant bathroom".

I said, we were ok to change her in the pram without a change table, and did not want to go out in the rain just to change her nappy (it was raining at that time). The staff member then directly told us we couldn't change nappy in their toilets. I asked why, no answer was given, and kept saying "I have to ask". During this short and baffling conversation, she kept looking around the corner into the direction of the restaurant in a sheepish way, and I can only guess that she was on the receiving end of instructions from her management.

We explained to her that her restaurant clearly caters to patrons with young children (e.g. plenty of high chairs are available), yet they do not allow babies/toddlers to use their toilets. We asked to speak to her manager. No answer was given, she went away to most likely speak to her manager.

The same staff member came back (without her manager) and said, we can use their toilets, but we must take the nappies with us to be disposed of outside of their restaurants ourselves.

After seeing we were not keen to take up this suggestion, she said she'll bring a plastic bag and we can give her the bag with the used nappy.

Whilst I write about this individual staff member, I sincerely believe it was not her, but the supervisor/manager who made such decisions and the staff was simply the unfortunate messenger. To make it clear, at no moment as I able to speak directly this supervisor, despite our request.

If they were concerned about the nappy sitting in their bathroom bin, they could have managed the situation in other ways, none of which needed to humiliate patrons.

We dine with our baby on a regular basis, from casual eats to finer restaurants. I can only describe all the experiences including trips to the bathrooms as pleasantly uneventful. We are respectful of using their facilities especially with a baby and never make any mess, as we appreciate entering a clean bathroom when we need to change our child. This was the first time we had such an awful experience at the receiving end of unfair discrimination.

It was the most humiliating 15min at a restaurant, especially one that is supposedly family friendly.

We and our extended family will not be dining at any Holy...

It was our last night in Sydney before heading home to the states and happened to find ourselves in Darling Square. The whole area was very festive and vibrant. There was a good crowd of people in the square relaxing on the lawn or having drinks and snacks in the cafes. Holy Basil stood out because of their beautiful decor and exquisitely decorated booths.

There was a small wait list for a table. Customers sign up in the list with their name and number and number of people in their party. We only waited about 20 minutes. The booths were all reserved for the night so we were seated on high top tables in the front along the lane way. It was a good people watching spot.

The menu is quite extensive so we asked the waitress for some help. She recommended so many items that it didn’t really help us narrow down what to order. We finally decided to go with the Holy Basil’s Signature Dish - Crispy Snapper + Mango Salad and the Pad Kee Mao. There were so many other dishes I wanted to try but there were only 2 of us and we had a late lunch.

The Snappedish is beautifully presented with the whole fish but the actual snapper meat had been cut into pieces and deep fried so they were like fish nuggets. It came with fish sauce to dip. I didn’t think it needed it because I ate the fish with the salad that had so much flavor but my husband did use the dipping sauce. The salad on top was dressed in a lime fish sauce mixture and was delicious. The menu did say that if mango was not ava they would substitute with apple. We had apple. The dish does not come with rice so we did order a small serving of steamed rice 🍚 to go along with it. The flavors and presentation were top notch.

The Pad Kee Mao was actually served first. Beautiful colors, lots of great flavors and a little spicy - which is how I like it.

We also ordered 2 drinks. I had the Emperors Sour and my husband had a mojito. His mojito was sweet like he likes it and lots of real mint leaves were muddled in. My drink was quite impressive adorned with passion fruit, orange and grapefruit slices as well as pandan leaves, a lemongrass stalk and mint and basil leaves! The flavor was very good also.

Customer Service - wait staff was nice but they were not overly friendly and they never checked up on us after our meal was served.

Overall, we had a wonderful dinner. The ambience was terrific and the food was one of the best I had on our trip. It was a perfect last...

The restaurant’s deco is impressive and I guess that’s what attracted all the people to come here. Certainly my friends and I were.

My two friends came 30 minutes earlier to have a drink on their veranda and hope to get a table. When we arrived we were told that it’s still at least another hour’s wait. We decided to go somewhere else but while we were chatting one of my friends asked the young waitress if we could have the sofa seats down the patio as they have been empty since they were there. To our surprise we were given the seats after the waitress discussed with her manager. Sometimes it pays off if you asked nicely.

It was hard to wave down the staff after we were seated but we pushed on. Someone did come to take our order after 10 minutes or so.

The curry puffs should have tasted better as they were beautifully cooked with the right crispiness and puffiness but there’s some bitterness from overused oil.

The Salt & Pepper Squid was sliced too big and it’s made with the big squid tube. While kind of tender it didn’t taste good so it’s meh.

The BBQ Chicken Salad has nice flavours but the chicken was slightly overcooked and not as tender and juicy as it should. If you can make chicken thighs dry out then they have been on the grill for too long…

The Crispy Pork Belly with Oyster Sauce was a generous serving and the better dish. They were crispy and not too salty. However they didn’t really wow us. I will say they were good but not “wow so good”…

We did not like the lamb cutlets. They looked nice but they were overcooked, tough to chew and dry. The marinade was too sweet and not enough saltiness for my taste.

The Green Curry Chicken has nice flavours. It’s not too creamy nor too watery. While it’s not the best I’ve ever tasted, I really like that they come with a nice amount of galangal juliennes which could hardly be found in Sydney’s green curry nowadays. So I really enjoy it.

All in all the food was average but it’s kind of expected in a big and touristy place such as this.

We were lucky to get a table quickly and the food was delivered surprisingly quickly. Just our luck I guess but the food quality is not worth waiting an hour for.

They should really be focus on their food quality and service and not just wow us with the blings. But how many restaurants...