love.fish — Restaurant in Sydney

(4.5 stars) Love.Fish inserts some much-needed bang-for-your-buck into Barangaroo. It’s a second restaurant for owners Michael Milkovic and Michelle Grand-Milkovic, one that builds upon their experience at the former Rozelle seafood eatery by the same name. Their next-gen Barangaroo restaurant has all the trappings of a fancy night out - seafood, a slick Anthony Gill Architects fit-out, water views – without the hefty price tag. What’s more, these savvy restaurateurs demonstrate admirably that mid-range diners can affordably scratch ethical seafood eating philosophies too.

Claiming a front row seat drenched in golden late afternoon light, we settle in with NSW Hand Dived Urchin ($18) served just as you’ll find it in the shell, bar for a little bit of cleaning. We smear the generous fat lobes of red sea urchin onto toast with a squeeze of fresh lemon and a pinch of crisp sea salt.

Eaten outdoors in the fresh sea air, it feels like a real treat, especially against sips of the 2018 Irvine Spring Hill Riesling ($13/glass). Recommended by earnest Restaurant Manager Paul Johndei Cabading, the wine neatly rewrites what you know about acidity and Riesling using pretty floral notes and white nectarine.

As we work our way through a pretty Pink Snapper Crudo ($22) involving long ribbons of carrot and daikon radish, with dashi with some seaweed intrigue, we’re kept entertained by a bold seagull’s daring raid upon the next table. After graduating from Circular Quay McDonalds, honing his skills taking cheeseburgers from unsuspecting tourists, this thug life seagull mugger has moved onto bigger and better things. In one fell swoop, he neatly liberates a Balmain bug from the top level of our neighbours’ seafood platter.

While staff rustle them up a new one, we join forces with them in front line serviette flapping restaurant defense. Mostly because we don't want to give up a mouthful of cured Port Lincoln Sardine Fillets ($17). Sitting in a vivid green pool of dill and olive oil, these shiny, oily fishes are delicious, and a far cry from the canned sardines you might have grown up with.

Sea Urchin Taramasalata ($18) is a stroke of kitchen genius, adapting the Greek meze usually made from tarama (salted cured cod roe) to use up any fresh urchin roe that doesn’t immediately sell. Along with Clarence River School Prawns ($18), it makes for a compelling drinking snack, eaten with crudités, bread or even smeared on the crunchy little school prawns.

With provenance indicated on the menu, fish, running from Northern Territory Humpty Doo Barramundi to locally caught garfish, come pretty much as they are. What sides you choose to eat them with, are completely up to you. We opted to share the most expensive fish – a rainbow trout, their Hot Smoked Whole Rainbow Trout ($38) – between two. As a special, this one came with a sharply dressed radicchio, fennel, pink grapefruit and pomegranate salad that helped to reset the palate after forays into the juicy, wet and smoky fish.

We added on a couple of generously proportioned sides – a pretty Heirloom Tomato Salad ($14) laid over light lemony ricotta, and Brussels Sprouts ($14) flash-fried then treated with oyster sauce, soy sauce and black pepper, cleverly counterbalanced by carrot puree – and had more than we could finish.

What I loved about Love.Fish is they take less sexy fish, like Spanish mackerel and garfish, and show diners what they can do. While this restaurant is firmly pitched at the mid-range, it doesn’t skimp on the trappings. Even the house white, the 2016 Love.Fish ‘The White’ ($17/glass), is a very drinkable pinot blanc viognier blend, chosen with obvious care. I predict you’ll leave Love.Fish smiling, with a sense of proportionality between your spend and what is delivered - something that's all too rare...

For $220 for 2 (food $140 + 4 drinks $80) the quality of the food is very average My partner and I ordered the set menu. We ordered drinks when we sat down and the entrees came before we received our drinks. My drink came out 15 minutes before my partners after asking where the her drink was 3 times. The calamari entrée came with a sauce made with pork! No mention on the menu! My partner is Muslim and luckily asked what was in the sauce. Bad mistake for an expensive restaurant (what are they thinking!). We sent it back. Entree included fried focaccia! Quality of the replacement calamari after we sent back the pork infused calamari was very average. The sashimi fish entrée in beetle leaf was the highlight, although not anything special. The main course barramundi pieces of fish were delicious but the spinach and dried baked shredded carrot that accompanied it was underwhelming, although it looked great. The blue swimmer crab risotto was too sloppy, mainly tasting of pumpkin without any taste of the crab. The dessert which was pear tart and ice cream. We were informed it would take 20 minutes to prepare. It was overcooked pear on a baked pancake! I couldn't finish it, although the one scoop of ice-cream between us was nice. The food was also lukewarm. I won’t be back to this restaurant or this restaurant strip. I figure there is a large premium to be paid because of its location close to the water. But from my point of view, the strip is like a beer barn and not intimate or romantic at all. The area is about young people out for a good time…and good on them, just not an environment I would like to eat at again. It’s a great place for teenagers and people in their twenties. Having said all that, it may also be the type of restaurant I like, which emphasise the taste of the food and ambiance over the location. It costs the same as eating at a restaurant like Alberto’s Lounge in Surry Hills or Matt Moran’s North Bondi Fish! I just don’t get...

Horrible service and rude staff is only the start of how this place runs. When I first walked in, I was greeted by a waiter who looked like they didn't want to do their job which was very evident in how they spoke to us. I told them I had made a reservation a week ago and not only did they disregard it, but they instead told me that they had given out table away. It took them 20 minutes to seat us at a table, when having a reservation, immediate seating should be expected. Not only did it take another 15 minutes to have our order taken, a big bearded man who claimed he was the owner of the place came up to us, telling us we were seated in the wrong place and we were moved even further away towards the back of restaurant. Almost an hour since we arrived had past till we got our orders, with the waitress giving us the wrong order twice and when we sent it back we overheard her saying that we were "disturbing" customers when we simply wanted our own order correct.

The food was cold by the time we got it (probably because 3 other customers got it before us before they realised it was ours) and the steak was not well done like I had asked. My husband's calamari felt uncooked and my daughter's salad was very bland and salty. Despite the troubles at the start, we thought we were going to get out of the restaurant quickly to pay the bill but instead had to wait another 15 minutes for the waitress to give us her attention before taking another 10 minutes to bring us the check. The service of this place is frankly laughable and a joke. If you do reservations you should be seating customers immediately as well as training your employees to get orders rights. The owner of this place clearly has no respect for customers and is only thinking about cramming as many people into the restaurant at want despite not enough space. Will not...