Searock Grill — Restaurant in Sydney

I have eaten at this restaurant several times. As a local, I like the location, with great views of Circular Quay and the Harbour Bridge. It can get quite touristy at times. I have enjoyed the food on the whole, but the service can be hit and miss. Today, I was greeted by a lovely waitress, who was clearly feeling the heat and the pace, but was still pleasant. We had a lovely chat as she showed me to my seat, providing me with menus. Too bad, I didn't see her anymore. I was served by two different staff, both of whom were indifferent and distracted. I was asked if I wanted something to drink, and I ordered a glass of wine. Then I waited and waited and waited to place my meal order. I kept on looking at the service area, where three waitresses were talking. The waitress who sat me was not around. They did go to serve at times, but despite my looking directly at them, no-one came near me. I am not the type to wave my arm around and demand service. It was not overly busy so I was unsure what was happening. Eventually, the waitress came over and asked, "Will you be ordering any food?" which seemed an odd question given she had already served me wine, I had cutlery on my table and menus sitting in front of me. I ordered and my food arrived. I wanted to add some salt, but my shaker was empty. I took a shaker from the table next to me, and it was empty too. I couldn't be bothered to even ask for help anymore. For the remainder of the meal, no one came near me to see how I was enjoying the meal or if I needed anything else. In the end, I decided to go rather than order desert and coffee. The man who cleared my table didn't even enquire if I wanted anything else which is a lost opportunity for them to make money. I just couldn't be bothered to go through it all again waiting for service from staff who seemed either too disinterested or indifferent or tired after the weekend. Also, I have noticed at some tourist-driven venues, service can be hit and miss, because the staff think you a one-off customer and it doesn't really matter to build customer loyalty. Now, this is becoming all too big an issue in Sydney hospitality and I have decided to no longer spend my money at restaurants. I will not be returning to this venue because while the food is good, the service is just to ho-hum and it affects the experience too much. Staff have to remember it is a performance and every customer deserves attention and engagement even if they don't feel like it. I feel this is a reasonable request given I worked in retail and hospitality for 30 years and trained staff to treat every single customer as the most important person they see all day. I also trained them that it was not how many customers they interacted with but how many customers observed them. You always need to be switched on because it affects the whole...

I should have trusted the other similar rated and one star reviews. The wait staff are kind, but did not wait on us, no offers of salt and pepper. The food though, oh dear. My excitement for the smell of beautiful oysters killpatrik was quashed by the first bite of what was brought out- a tiny oyster overloaded with chopped bacon with no further seasoning or sauce. No smokey taste, no tomato base and no touch of dill or similar. Simply a pile of dry, salty, bacon bits on top of three miserable oysters. The fresh prawns were beautiful, which tells me they do have access to Australia’s amazing seafood- yet for some reason the chef seems to treat it with such offence. I ordered the Barra- a beautiful fish with a fresh taste and an easy fish to get right. Somehow, the idea of fresh seafood has been misconstrued upon the curation of this dish- with the fish being so overloaded with oil I’m not entirely sure the thing wasn’t born swimming around in a canola drum. The radish was cut too thick- but in this case, it was a blessing to have a touch of freshness to go with the oily chunk of fish. I figure the cost may be accurate to the current price of oil, if one was to use USD. I was hoping to grab some desert but I think I will skip out on account of seeking to purchase a cart full of clearisil in anticipation of how my body may react to this egregious wok full of viscous dressing. My partner received the steak- the inside looked cooked to perfection as medium rare, but we seem to have the same issue as another diner who’s already reviewed the same dish. The bottom was charred beyond saving, and was bitter. The mushroom sauce… why on earth is this being sent out at all? If you don’t want to make mushroom sauce don’t put it on the menu. Tinned champingions in what tastes as sweet as cake mix but as liquid as a Campbells soup was a sad excuse for a condiment- but was the only item of flavour on the plate. The chips were unseasoned entirely, and there’s no salad or greens served with the steak- which would’ve been fine had every other element of the dish not been a poor waste of food and an affront to the cattle drovers of this beautiful land. I don’t believe any of the food we ate tonight was worth the price, not monetarily nor by spirit- as I feel a sense of sadness for the lack of respect every ingredient was given in this makeup of calories that are sitting half eaten in front of me right now. I am one to speak to staff if there is a problem rather than review- after working in kitchens as a chef for close to a decade I believe it’s a respect we all deserve- but those in charge here clearly have little to no respect for their patrons- or the food.

Do yourself a favour- go...

I have been going to Searock for many years because I was a subscriber to the Sydney Symphony concerts at the Opera house and I always had dinner beforehand at Searock. I think it might have been called something else many years ago when I first started going there but I could be wrong about that in any case I always looked forward to dinner there before the concert. I don't subscribe any more now, but I took a friend of mine there for lunch just before Christmas and we enjoyed it so much that we invited a few other friends and had lunch there again on Saturday the 13th just recently. Last year we sat outside because the weather was mild it's a lovely spot to be with great views of the bridge and the joy of watching the old ferries and the new ferries coming and going from circular Quay. The lunch we had on the 13th we chose to sit inside because it was very hot, and the waitstaff fixed up a table for six very quickly and so we were all seated in no time at all. The waitstaff were very friendly as they have always been. I ordered the barramundi and the others had steak and burgers and chicken salad. The food is always lovely there and my barramundi was no exception I also bought the crunchy chips which are so good that I almost always buy them now as a side, and the aioli dip makes them even tastier. The atmosphere inside the restaurant is lovely as well as outside but inside of course you can remain a bit cooler in the hot weather. There is always the constant sound of happy conversation coming from the surrounding tables and I'm sure that the six of us probably made a whole lot more noise because we all tend to be very talkative. The food was perfect, the barramundi was lovely and I even ate the skin this time which I sometimes don't bother doing. Everybody else was saying how nice the food was and how much they were enjoying themselves. I had booked online for 12:30 and there was a proviso online that we had a timeslot of 90 minutes but it wasn't flat out and we ended up sitting there until 3:30 without once being asked to hurry up or leave. When we did leave we all commented about what a lovely afternoon it had been and we resolved to come back again maybe on a regular basis. I have always enjoyed being at Searock or whatever it was called decades ago when I first started going there and it will remain my first choice for dinner or lunch in the city. The only thing I would like to suggest is that the online booking process allowed you to specify outdoors or indoors at the time...