Salt Meats Cheese Circular Quay — Restaurant in Sydney

I had been eager to try out this restaurant for a while and last Saturday was the perfect opportunity. With high expectations based on positive reviews, we decided to visit the Circular Quay branch located in a food court. Although the atmosphere was a bit noisy and cramped with no scenic view, after being ignored for about 7 minutes we were given a table in a corner near the elevator for a birthday reservation.

As for the food, I opted for the SAFFRON ARANCINI with Paprika mayo and parmigiano. While it was good, I suspected it was not fried fresh since it arrived in less than three minutes after ordering. The buffalo pizza we ordered was perfectly cooked in the wood fried overnight the Napoletana style way, very thin with no sogginess and full of amazing flavors. We thoroughly enjoyed it.

For the main course, I chose the carbonara pasta from the weekly special menu. As I prefer to avoid bacon, I requested mushrooms instead. However, the waiter made a joke about how it would no longer be a true carbonara without bacon. Although I was not pleased with the comment, I chose not to argue and let it go. The pasta itself was alright, but it lacked enough sauce and had a dry texture with little sticking to the pasta. Perhaps they made it quickly after we ordered let it wait to be served with the pizza, which could explain its shortcomings.

The waiter later checked in to see how the mushroom substitution was, and I prefers it over bacon. He also suggested that adding too much mushroom could’ve made it watery, hence the lack of sauce. I was kinda shocked to hear his comment as there’s a lot of mushroom and cream, pasta sauce in Italian cuisine, mushroom doesn’t make it watery they should’ve known better. As it would’ve been a great pasta dish if they added the perfect amount of sauce and served it hot.

Additionally, I must mention that our wine glasses were not clean, and we had to request for them to be replaced as dirt was visible on them.

Overall, the food was okay, but I wouldn't go out of my way to visit the restaurant again.

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The pizzas and my chicken cotoletta was great - although the cabbage in my chicken cotoletta was too salty. My kids were loving their pizzas. I did try kale salad, but a bit salty. The ambience was ok, I think it'll be more beautiful at night. Reasonably priced too. Went to SMC for Monday lunch with my family from NZ and some live in Sydney (we were travelling from Newcastle), very happy we got a table booked after 2x failed because SMC were fully booked. The young waitress with black hair was friendly and polite but she forgot our orders of orange juice for my son and Gnocchi dish for my eldest sister. When I realised OJ for my son isn't on the table yet, I tried to wave to 2 waitresses who were too busy chatting, I wave for quite some time, I am pretty sure I was ignored by the older waitress who has short dark hair with eyeglasses - how can you not see a hand waving at you when you were standing facing me?? The restaurant was not even full. Finally a bartender (I think) came and helped us from behind. He was polite. Also this particular female waitress who is older (than the first one who took our order) has short dark hair with eyeglasses was not very friendly when my younger sister ask about the type of nut in Chicken Cotoletta - She could handle it better - a SMILE is all you need! …or was it because we are ASIANS?! I saw her smiling and being friendly with the other WHITE female guests who were sitting near the window. I feel discriminated. THE ONLY TIME SHE WAS FRIENDLY TO US WAS WHEN WE HAVE TO PAY! I would recommend the pizzas but very disappointed with the services. Not sure about other family members but I...

Rude waitress. She rolled her eyes at me after I said I needed more time to look at the menu after being seated for literally 2 minutes. The other waitress who showed me to my table (but didn’t serve me) was nice though. Had the fish of the day (salmon) and tiramisu. Food was average, nothing special. Salmon skin was too salty and tiramisu tasted like it was from a supermarket. Was seated at the corner so not sure how the atmosphere was. Same waitress slammed the plate down on the table. Stood up to go pay at the cashier and she stopped me. I said do I pay at the cashier? And she said she can bill me at my table and asked me to sit back down. She brought the POS machine to my table. I said I wanted to pay in cash and she was stunned and literally didn’t know what to do. Went to discuss with her coworkers (I wonder why paying in cash is such a surprise?) before making me stand up to go to the cashier again, which I was already doing the first time. Felt like she was accusing me of trying to dine and dash when I stood up to walk to the cashier the first time since she literally blocked my way and didn’t let me go. Didn’t even ask what mode of payment I preferred and she also shoved the POS machine in my face. Btw I visited on 6 May dinner time as a solo diner. I’m also visibly Asian, not sure if the waitress took that into consideration when she prevented me from leaving my table to go pay. Would never...