Nield Park Pavilion — Restaurant in Sydney

I have previously given this place a positive review which I must now withdraw and report a very unsatisfactory experience here.

Our party of three made a booking for Sunday lunch. We were seated and ordered a shared starter and main meals with beverages.

The cutlery and serving plates were not clean, having been poorly dishwashed.

We observed other diners arrive and fill the tables around us and have their orders taken by the proprietor - whom had chummy conversations with these customers, appearing to be his friends and regulars. Takeaway orders were also taken and filled while we sat and waited.

These tables around us received their meals while we sat waiting for over an hour receiving only our shared starter meal and beverages.

We made repeated enquiries with our wait staff as to the status of our order without satisfactory result. Some of the orders we observed being filled to the tables around us were of the same dishes we had ordered - to customers that had arrived being seated and ordering AFTER us.

Our Guest became distressed with hunger and my octogenarian mother anxious that her Christmas lunch with her son was going awry.

After an hour and 10 minutes of observing friends and preferred regulars of the proprietor have their orders taken and filled around us we decided to leave.

While settling the bill for what was served I witnessed our wait staff atremping to chase our order being shooed away from the kitchen by the proprietor. That staff member was obviously concerned for us.

A glib insincere apology from the proprietor provided no reason for the failures. In hindsight I wish that we had simply got up and left without paying for what we had received.

It saddens me to think that after 10 years plus of happily frequenting this establishment we will not be returning and nor will any of our family, friends or associates.

This establishment is for the friends and preferred regulars of the proprietor only. Unless you fall into this category I suggest you stay well away from this...

Avoid this place is my best recommendation. They took 55 minutes from the time we ordered till the time I received my meal, my wife’s took 10 minutes less!!!! The quality of the food was ok, however the service was atrocious.

The owner walks around trying to look as if he cares, however he only cares about his friends as their food comes before that of other patrons.

He serves alcohol to those he likes although I suspect he’s not licensed to serve alcohol.

At the 35 minute mark I asked about our meals and I was told that they would take another 10 minutes as they were “very busy” although 1/3 of the tables were empty, when my wife’s meal arrived and mine didn’t I asked about it and the young man told me “I thought you had had it”!!!!!! Don’t they keep a record of what’s ordered and served??

The owner hid in the kitchen whilst my order was being cooked, no courage to come out, explain and apologise for the inconvenience.

When leaving he didn’t even have the courtesy of saying sorry or thanks for your patience.

Given previous reviews, I strongly recommend that this cafe be avoided...

Overall not very impressed with this cafe, it does have awesome views and is in a nice spot with nice staff however thats as far as i would go. I have been several times and the main aspect that needs improvement is the overall presentation and substance of the meals, for instance i ordered the Italian Scrambled eggs with prosciutto and the meal had a 50cent sized piece of proscitto along with one piece of bread and some runny scrambled eggs and that was it, really could have done with some dressings to present the meal and some additional prosciutto. Another meal we ordered was the Granola with yoghurt and berry coulis, this meal had a decent amount of granola however needed to straight away ask for some more yoghurt as there was not enough (additional charge) there was a teaspoon of berry coulis and literally one strawberry cut in half and put on top. Really struggled to enjoy these meals and was very dissapointed. We did provide feedback to the waitress and this was accepted however we felt there was a lot of justification as to why it was...