Smoke Bar — Restaurant in Sydney

Obligatory "if I could give this zero stars I would." The wait staff are rude and inattentive, the venue is pretentious and there's absolutely no way you can relax here when you are constantly being treated like kindergartners.

We made a booking for a medium sized group with the knowledge that some would leave and others would join later. We were sat down in a lounge area that didn't have a set number of seats but were repeatedly reminded to squeeze closer in together as the other half of the couches were booked for a different group. That's fair as the party size did end up being slightly larger and we offered that some of the party could stand so we could make some room. We were told "this is just not a standing venue." There was no way to know this as the name suggests it is a bar and I personally have never been to a bar where you aren't allowed to stand or go anywhere other than your designated area. There was actually a few red ropes being used to cordon areas off and we were repeatedly scolded for leaning back out of our zone.

One member of our party got up and attempted to enjoy the view closer to the balcony but was quickly ushered away, told she couldn't be in that general space as it was reserved. So we can't sit, but we can't stand and can't even so much as look out over the high walls to try to see the view (which is kinda why you book a rooftop venue).

We found it quite odd that there was no way to order at the bar and the entire party had to nominate a victim to leave their card behind the bar. I waited over an hour for two cocktails while others in our group had already been served two rounds of small, watered down cocktails with, actually no, the one star goes to the incredibly crystal clear ice cubes. I honestly felt bad for asking the staff three times about our drinks before others in our party had to make it more clear that we were unhappy with the service. I'm a bit iffy about paying an 8% service charge for that kind of service, and it was very clear the waitstaff were either having a bad day or were just not interested in serving us. Maybe we were under-dressed, who knows.

We ended up leaving out of frustration, and only stayed as long as we did to allow everyone to finish up. As we were getting up to leave the two cocktails FINALLY came (two of us were there for over an hour and had not had one drink... at all). We told the waitstaff sorry, but we are leaving already, it's too late. And she very rudely said "that's fine I'll just throw it out" with a tone that implied we were being difficult.

All in all I can't say I've ever been to such an uptight and pretentious venue that didn't deliver in at least some other capacity. It was definitely a waste of time, nobody in our group left feeling any bit satisfied and it's safe to say none of us...

Smoke Bar is in dire need of new management.

I hosted my birthday at this venue in December with a group of approximately 30 guests, and it was quite possibly the worst bar experience I have ever had. As a Sydney professional with extensive experience hosting events, I can confidently say that Smoke Bar failed to meet basic expectations for event hosting or customer service.

I prepaid the food order as requested, but despite two months of email contact with the reservations team, a formal bar tab arrangement was never agreed upon.

On the night, the venue host greeted us, and the food was served onto the tables all at once, completely lacking the thoughtfulness expected given the high menu prices and the additional 8% service charge. Staff began taking drink orders and misleadingly assured guests that drinks were "on the tab" — despite no bar tab having been set up prior or upon arrival. One guest requested a glass of Johnnie Walker and was told by staff that they only serve Johnnie Walker Blue Label. When she enquired about the cost, she was informed it was $49 for a glass and told “That’s OK, it’s on the tab”. Given that a bar tab was never set up, this seems like pretty misleading and deceptive conduct.

When I closed off the “bar tab”, I was approached by the manager who asked, “How will your guests buy drinks then? We are not set up for people to buy their own drinks". This statement is absurd for any bar, let alone one advertising itself as a premium venue. The lack of basic functionality in their operations, such as allowing individual guests to purchase their own drinks or offering viable billing options for a group of this size, was staggering. Throughout the evening, I was constantly interrupted by staff and management, and instead of enjoying the celebration, I found myself mediating the venue's incompetence. The reserved area covered 6 tables and yet they continued to enforce a no split bill policy for a cocktail style event of 30 people. The floor manager was unable to offer any solutions on the night.

Moving 30 people to another location at short notice wasn’t feasible, so we were effectively trapped in a poorly managed, overpriced venue that lacked the ability to handle its own advertised services. It is clear that Smoke Bar should not offer event hosting if they are incapable of delivering a seamless experience. Their lack of professionalism and poor management made what should have been a memorable night, deeply unpleasant.

If you're considering booking an event here, save yourself the stress — this is not the venue for it. Smoke Bar is far from equipped to manage events or provide a quality...

So last week I was celebrating a friend’s birthday party at near by restaurant and we thought we would go visit smoke bar because we haven’t been there.(Fact: we were all dressing up semi-formal as we were having the dinner at a formal restaurant nearby). When we got to the smoke bar entrance the security said we can’t get in as a friend of ours was wearing a T-shirt. First of all, on the website there is no statement mentioned about the dress code or entry conditions to the bar nor the restaurant. However, we didn’t argue with the security but we just decided to go to the house bar instead. We got a table outside near the smoke bar entrance. While we were chatting we saw afew guys who were wearing t shirt went in thru the entrance. So when we saw a security walked past us, we asked him why we got refused to entry but not them. He then suggested us to talk to this blonde prob mid 20s manager girl. She came to our table afew mins later asked why we wanted to see her. I asked her the same question but her response was they were all contracters. I explained to her that from customers point of view we do not know that they are contacters or not and I asked her if they should’ve told him to dress according to the policy to be fair. Then instead of explaining the policy properly, she gave us the rudest attitude and didn’t even try to solve problem. We told her that we were just giving them a feedback and we won’t be coming back at all. To be honest she is the manager and she is the face of the bar and the restaurant. The way she dressed up to work place like was more like she was doing grocery shopping and the way she treated us showed us she got no customer service experience at all. Overall it was a very bad experience from a place like this and we will never...