Planar Restaurant — Restaurant in Sydney

This was by far the worst dining experience we have had in many years and I am not one to complain BUT this place is truly something embarrassing. DO NOT go here unless you're happy to wait 45 minutes between each meal course (entrée, main and dessert) and you're also satisfied NOT receiving basic table service even though the location and prices would otherwise suggest this. The food was not bad but it was not great, it was just okay. However, the service is what failed most. We went to this restaurant on the 3rd January for a 7:30pm reservation and were eventually able to finished our dessert and pay at 10pm. We have eaten at all types of establishments ranging from fancy Hat restaurants and places like Bennelong and Aria right down to McDonalds and your 2am Kebab crawl. Therefore, I can obviously appreciate what level of service would be suitable and should be expected for various types of venues and establishments. We were obviously not expecting 'silver service' or anything special, just your essentials 101 basic table service. Staff members did NOT bring cutlery until prompted. Staff members did NOT bring napkins until prompted (even though we had BBQ ribs - which should actually have wet wipes and bibs, even hurricanes brings this). Staff member did NOT clear the plates before the next course came out (we ate our desserts with our mains stacked everywhere). Staff members did NOT offer table water (even though we finished wines and cocktails) until the end of service when we prompted staff. Staff did NOT check in on us throughout the dinner service to see if everything was okay OR if we wanted to order anything else (like drinks perhaps?). The waiter took our mains order after we had finished the entrée and therefore we had to wait almost an hour for the mains to arrive. This experience was NOT just our table, I was observing the whole restaurant and many other tables had similar service issues. When I went to pay the bill, I asked to speak to a manager to inform them of the dining experience (as listed above). At first there was no manager, then apparently a lady came forward and said she was the manager. I politely informed her of the above and NOT even a sincere apology or an offer to take something off the bill as a sign of goodwill (which I would have refused on principle, because it was about the service not the costs). I also reiterated to her that for this prime location in Darling Harbour and restaurant type, the service IS NOT acceptable and it needs to be better. All she responded with was "Yes, sorry, normally it's not like this, we were just so busy tonight". It was only moderately busy (still empty tables around us). I would suggest the owner check the revenue for this night to confirm how busy it really was. An extremely disappointing experience. I feel bad for any visitor to Sydney who has to tolerate this restaurant and think this is what Sydney has to...

If I could give this review a 3.5/5 (st⭐️rs) it would b more accurate but I guess what tipped this review 2 a 4 instead of 3 (st⭐️rs) were several savin graces which I will go thru now before I get to the negatives of my review... My family n I were there on Sat 8/3/25 5pm... The first saving grace is that I had/have been here once before 4 brunch and it was gr8... Food was delicious, service was excellent... So even if my experience here this time wasn't as good as the first time I came/was here, based on that first visit I gave this review grace n brownie points... The second saving grace here was the service we got from our waitress! She was outstanding/w🌏rld class... She was a tall, slender, blonde, young American or maybe Canadian woman... The only reason I describe her physically is because she did not have any type of name tag or identification on (which is/was fine) but/so I didn't get her name but I did want her to get full credit here for her service... Last saving grace was the/your food portions were very big/generous portions of food served! I would also like to note that the stone baked dips was so nice! The bread waz warm n fresh, the dips so tasty... I can say the same for the Planar's Catch 🍕 which was essentially a 🦐 pizza, that was yum too! Now for the not so good parts of this review... In no particular order (from like bad 2 worst or nething like that)... The salt n pepper 🦑 wasn't good... It was flavourless, where u couldn't taste the salt n/or (the) pepper... And the accompanying dipping sauce which I think was aioli which was the only thing that gave the dish any kind/type/sort of flavour was a small lil portion, essentially not enough... It also got cold really really quickly... While our waitress was awesome, unfortunately the rest of the floor staff could not match her greatness/service... This isn't to say the floor staff sucked, that is not tha case at all! They were ok, just not as good as our waitress and there were 2 instances that I would like to outline/point out which were not good (dining) experiences for me... In 1 instance a lil Asian waitress (God bless her) wasn't watching where she was goin and nearly ran into me as I waz returning/walking back to my table from a toilet trip... Another not so gr8 experience was when we were trying to get sum1's attention for the bill, I struggled to get any1 2 look in our direction... Last negative in/on/4 this post/review was the dirty fork I was greeted with at the table... I will include a...

Possibly the most horrific breakfast I have had in a cafe.

Firstly the setting was lovely, comfortable chairs and a nice outdoor setting (albeit with a wobbly table!)

The waitress who took our order was pleasant and doing her best, however they were clearly understaffed for the influx of people (the weekend of the Good Food and Wine Show, so clearly you need to roster staff accordingly)

I ordered their version of the eggs Benedict which consisted of a scattering of baby spinach leaves on a cold plate, with a barely toasted, cold and oddly textured single slice bread, and a generous amount of smoked salmon (the only positive I could give this atrocity). The 2 eggs on top were laughably bad, one poached so long it was the consistency of a hard boiled egg, the other slightly less firm, but both stone cold, then the dish was covered with a barely tepid Hollandaise.

My friend ordered the London Breakfast (their version of a full English.) A huge portion of food to be fair, but again all barely tepid. One sausage… weirdly sliced lengthways… why??? The bacon was atrocious. I mean how is it possible to have one end of a bacon rasher barely cooked (the fat was still white) and the other end burnt? Fortunately for her, she had ordered no eggs. The mushrooms and tomatoes were also stone cold. Obviously busy kitchens prep food in advance and assemble dishes to order, but did someone forget to plug the Bain Marie in? The dish was topped off with 2 slices of stone cold and barely toasted bread served with butter so cold it could not be spread.

We had to request salt and pepper twice before it arrived. Why is it not in the table, or delivered with the meal?

Unfortunately I am unable to comment on the coffee. My friends latte didn’t arrive. We reminded the waitress that our coffee hadn’t arrived and she said it was coming (it never did!. When we paid our bill we asked for it to be removed from the bill, but it turned out it was never placed on our order to start with! My tea was a very average tea bag in a pot. I find it really annoying when cafes charge a significant amount for tea but can’t be bothered serving leaf tea, or at least a premium quality tea bag.

The high point was the juice, delicious!

2 people for breakfast… $81!!! (And that’s without the...