Orient Hotel — Restaurant in Sydney

Review of The Orient Hotel – A Disappointing Turnaround (Saturday, 19.07.25) My three friends and I visited The Rocks for the weekend to celebrate a dear friend’s 59th birthday, traveling from various parts of NSW and Queensland—including the Stroud area and Hervey Bay (QLD). It was my first-ever weekend visiting The Rocks, and we were all looking forward to a fun, memorable time together. We had visited The Orient Hotel on Friday night and found the staff and security to be absolutely lovely—welcoming, professional, and respectful. Based on that experience, we were excited to return on Saturday. After a lovely dinner in Chinatown, we stopped for one mid-strength beer at The Australian Hotel, located just across from our Airbnb. From there, we walked over to The Orient to enjoy some live music and continue our celebration. When we arrived, we lined up at the entrance, where two security guards were on the door. One of them—a Caucasian, ginger-haired man in his 50s—began questioning me about our evening. At first, I thought he was making small talk, but he suddenly and quite aggressively told me I was too intoxicated to enter. I was genuinely shocked—I had only consumed one mid-strength beer and felt completely fine. When I calmly asked if he was serious, his tone quickly turned rude and condescending. He spoke to me and my friends in a dismissive, belittling manner, as though we didn’t belong there. We are well-dressed, middle-aged women simply looking to enjoy some live music, but we were treated with suspicion and disrespect. At no point were we rude or argumentative. We were stunned and quietly chose to move on. Later, the four of us found ourselves trying to make sense of what had happened. The birthday girl and I had been standing arm in arm in line—something completely normal among close friends—and we began to wonder if the security guard had wrongly assumed we were a couple and taken issue with that. We genuinely couldn’t come up with any other explanation for his behavior, especially since none of us were intoxicated. Feeling confused and upset, we returned to The Australian Hotel, where I spoke with their lovely security guard, Bob. I told him about our experience, and he was visibly shocked. He reassured us that we were always welcome in his venue and treated us with kindness and respect—something that meant a lot after the way we had been made to feel. If the guard at The Orient did make assumptions about us based on appearance or perceived orientation, it’s incredibly disappointing. Discrimination—whether based on age, appearance, or perceived sexuality—should never be tolerated, especially in such a public and previously welcoming venue. This incident sadly cast a shadow over what should have been a joyful evening during a special weekend. As someone visiting The Rocks for the first time, it was a disheartening experience. I sincerely hope The Orient takes this feedback seriously and ensures all patrons are treated with the dignity and fairness they deserve—regardless of who they are or who...

I've been here quite a few times, and have mixed feelings. The food is generally good, with a few things that are better than good and a few things that are mediocre at best. It isn't full-service (which isn't a negative, just something to be prepared for), you order at the par and pay for your food, but they bring it to the table. You go back to the bar for anything you need.

It's a beautiful building, the bartenders are friendly, the crowd is a good one and the atmosphere is great. There are two seating areas, one on one side of the building where you can eat outside, and another in a beautiful courtyard on the other side where you can only get drinks. The courtyard one is a smoking area, one I've used many times to sit with a cigar and a drink.

My experience tonight was poor, and combined with the generally average food I likely won't eat here again (but will come back for drinks). My wife ordered the "Summer Crunch Salad". It was chock-full of things she loves, and falafel (which she really loves). She was already in the mood for a salad, so it would have been perfect . . . except that it wasn't. It was honestly terrible. The falafel was dry and just crumbled in your hand, the salad looked wilted and had no flavor at all. I even tried a bite with a large piece of reddish, and couldn't even taste the reddish (much less the rest). She ate two bites before deciding it was inedible, and we asked someone if we could exchange it for a Caesar salad if possible. We asked for it to go, since by this point she was shaking on my food for a while and want that hungry. The person we asked seemed to think it wasn't a possibility, but he would check. He came back with a to-go box and said that the chef was busy, and was told to tell us that it was what she ordered so she couldn't get anything else. I would understand that if I ordered something I didn't like, but was made perfectly, it would make sense (I've seen people do this). This wasn't the case at all, and after telling him it was terrible he still packaged it to go. We obviously just left it on the table, and likely won't eat there again.

It's a great place to have a drink, listen to live music, sit outside, people-watch, and have a smoke. I wouldn't recommend the food in general, although I highly recommend the chips with garlic aioli if you want a snack. They are perfect, just enough crispy-ness and salt, and...

Today is New Years Eve and coming from Cairns I thought it would be nice to be in the city for the New Years celebration. So partner and I got a train to the Circular Quay and wandered around and say the Orient Hotel and thought it would be a nice location for a drink and meal. That was the start of our woes. We went inside and had a few drinks and someone sharing the table suggested we would need a ticket to stay later in the night so I wen and checked with security at the door and he knew nothing- but suggested I check with security on main entrance which I did and he said he was not aware of any restrictions to access the bar, so we went back to our table and ordered meals. We then got a visit from the manager who said there was a change of plans and if we didn’t have a ticket to the New Years event we would need to go to the end of the queue and buy our tickets to enter.. I suggested that what if we were half way through our meal and he responded that after we finished we would need to Leah and line up at the end of the queue.. I contended that I was happy to pay the entry fee then and there but he reinforced that we would need to leav and line up at the end of the queue. So after we finished our meal we left the premises and there was not a long queue waiting to enter the Orient bar so I suggested to my partner that we might as well line up to re-enter.. Well apparently because I had the temerity to ask (in a civil / respectful way I might add) about the constantly changing requirements for entry I was considered to be a risk and was asked to leave the queue and we would not be allowed to re- enter the pub. I have to say this is probably the poorest example of customer service I have ever witnessed and as a senior manager of 40+ years of experience I can’t imagine how this supervisor could hold his position. I certainly will never visit this bar again if I happen to be visiting Syd and I explore others to do the same whilst ever this incompetent person...