STEKI taverna — Restaurant in Sydney

Very disappointed in the service. Organised a booking for 14 people, arrived and they didn’t accommodate enough chairs. Was unable to grab the attention of a server to ask for the additional chair needed and my friend had to physically walk up to the servers and ask for one after standing around for 5 minutes. Being unable to grab staff attention was a reoccurring theme for the hour we were there.

Was told on the night that we were only allowed to order the banquet menu and not individual mains. This wasn’t told to me over the phone when I initially made the booking. I also struggled to find a proper menu online at the time with pricing but this could have been an issue on my end.

We weren’t given any water for 25-30 minutes after we sat down and only got a glass each after we had to ask for some. This was again difficult as we struggled to get attention from staff as they seemed to not look in the direction of any of us sitting at the table. We weren’t asked if we wanted any drinks or food the entire time we were seated. The only two times a waitress came up to the table to talk to us about the food was just to let us know we could only order the banquet not individual mains. This was annoying as we had a couple people with vegan dietary requirements that we were trying to get some clarification on if they could be accommodated.

After about 55 minutes the entire party decided to get up and leave to find somewhere else to eat. Only then did someone come up and ask us why were leaving. After informing of the reasons why I was told we could come back and they were ready to serve us. I said I was not about to ask everyone to come back after we’ve already got up and gone outside.

Again very disappointed as I have eaten at the old location in the past and had a fantastic time with great food. But waiting almost an hour with no food or drink while other tables have arrived after us, ordered and been served alcohol before we got any is unacceptable.

To respond to the owner: The booking was on 03/12/23 at 8:00pm...

We had a large group and ordered banquet 3. We felt the portion sizes were small, and not value for money at around $70 pp. We initially planned to get banquet 2, but i can see why they insisted we get banquet 3 as we would have left hungry. We were very surprised when the food came out. Banquet 3 should be priced around the $40- 50 price range, for the food. We should have ordered from the a la carte menu. As they upsold us to banquet 3, we were told we would receive food for 9 people but that didnt happen. We would have happily paid for the 9th but they insisted to charge us for 8 so we received 8 portions of everything, which wasnt really what we agreed. I asked for another piece of halloumi 3 times and it never arrived. Tried to explain it but they couldn't really hear our screaming over the music. Mind you we waited over 1.5 hours for the last dishes. Its worthwhile to mention that the music was so loud, we were basically screaming at each other. We knew there was a live band but how are diners meant to have conversation if its blasting. They did turn it down but it didn't help at all. We had to go outside to talk. Rated a 1 for atmosphere because the noise level ruined it. Finally, we would not return and it was a little disappointing. Its great if you want to dance and have no conversation, but its not for us. The banquet isn't really a banquet and a mix of small amounts of food. The staff were great and can't really fault the service. There are so many options in enmore, so will go elsewhere. Not really worth the $1000 we spent on the...

Used to be good... Good has gone downhill and service even worse. Booked this place for the beginning of a bucks night, and the manager gave our table away to a group of women. When confronted he said our booking was for later in the evening, but when I pressed him to see the bookings in the book we found he'd been lying. If you make a mistake, at least own up to it instead of lying to our faces! They seem to think it's still the 80s and there aren't any better Greek options around, WRONG!

Edit: I have only now seen the owner's reply, and believe it warrants a reply of its own. For reference, the owner replied:

"Konstantinos , i apologise for our error, but I have not lied to you. I showed you the booking and you saw the time of the booking. Now I admit there was a mistake made, probably by us, maybe an accidental entry, but there was no lying. I can't understand how you can state that I "was caught" lying. "

You were in fact lying when you told me to my face that the booking was for 21:30, and when I asked you to show me in your book there wasn't even any booking for us, not at the time we requested, and not at the time you were so insistent we had booked for. You could have saved the whole situation by saying someone had made a mistake when taking the booking, and you would do your best to seat us. Instead you panicked and gave us a fake booking time, and buckled again when I pointed out to you there was no booking at that time in your booking journal. Everyone makes mistakes - had you owned up to yours, this review would never have...