Summer Salt Restaurant — Restaurant in Sydney

I dined at summer salt yesterday for my mother’s birthday and was extremely disappointed. I’ve heard from so many people over the years that this restaurant is amazing. But it’s not anymore. The staff were amazing but the decor, toilets and worst of all, the food, were pretty bad. I ordered the chicken dumplings as a main and was very annoyed when a huge plate with 8 little dumplings arrived after what seemed like ages. They were rubbery and tasteless, just wonton wrappers with unseasoned chicken mince inside. The only element that saved them was the chilli oil sitting in the bottom of the plate. If you’re going to serve dumplings, they need to be just as good as a yum cha, but considering I paid $38 for that little plate, I was hoping to get much better than my local yum cha at Kogarah RSL. I could of got much better dumplings for a quarter of the price in china town. My mother ordered the salt and pepper squid and she said it was okay but it looked very bland and dry, dumped in a big pile of aioli the colour of radioactive material. Her main was a snapper fillet in more radioactive coloured material, meant to be a pumpkin mash. She said the fish was very fresh so that was one good thing, at least. So, now to desserts. My mother ordered the strawberry bavarois which looked liked it had been set in an ice mould, very early 2000’s. It was okay but nothing great. I’ve had much better mousse type cakes from a bakery. The one saving grace was my dessert, a banana pudding. It tasted amazing. But the way it was set out on my plate was very clumsy. A big chunky triangle with the sauce dropped on top, served with creme fraiche which didn’t go with it at all. Luckily I ordered coconut ice cream, maybe in some sort of psychic prediction of the disaster that was to come with the creme fraiche. There were some dry crumbs sprinkled under the creme fraiche so I went to lift it up in order to eat them and to my horror discovered a dark curly hair which I’m hoping was only from one of the chefs moustaches or eyebrows. Although not likely. I’m starting to think now that my meals were cooked and prepped by the more inexperienced staff in the kitchen. Possibly a young man that does not wash his hands after going to the bathroom. It makes me shiver and luckily I’d finished my dessert before the awful discovery. I was going to inform the lovely waitstaff but they were so lovely I didn’t want to embarrass them. But more importantly, it was my mother’s birthday and she begged me not to say anything. It’s just so unacceptable for such an expensive restaurant. As I mentioned, the staff were faultless although I do think they knew not to ask how the meal was because everything was just so dry, bland and clumsy. Now to the decor and toilets. The decor is like a sort-of-ok RSL club. The white lounges in the wait area were extremely grubby and in need of a shampoo. The blue carpet is dated. The toilets were absolutely atrocious! For such an expensive restaurant you’d expect a decent toilet. They were smelly and dirty and I loathed to actually sit on the seat. How can Jensen let his restaurant run like this? My mother held her 60th party here and loved it and even she finally admitted in the car on the way home that she was extremely disappointed. The bread was actually pretty amazing we both did agree, but considering it was $10 for one little sourdough roll and two slices of seed bread, it’d bloody want to be. At such an expense, bread should just be free with the meal. So, no, both my mother and I will definitely not be dining at summer salt again. It was so depressing because we had actually wanted to eat at Jensen’s, the twin restaurant in kareela, owned by the exact same chef! How can two restaurants owned by exactly the same chef be so different in quality and health standards? But unfortunately we didn’t know that Jensen’s was closed for Wednesday lunch. My mother took a day off from work especially for her birthday lunch. Some special day. $200 for dry, bland food with a pubic hair just to add to the misery. What a waste...

A disappointing Mother’s Day lunch. I had booked the lunch online preordering the welcome cocktails and seafood platter. On arrival we were greeted nicely and sent to a window table. This is pretty much when the beautiful experience stopped. Our waiter offered water. Our napkins were not placed on our laps. The menu was under the plates which we were not told. We had 2 children in which only adult menus were only provided. Upon the waiters return asking us if we wanted to order drinks, I reminded him we pre ordered cocktails and then also ordered soft drinks for the kids and asking for kids menus. Nearly 15 minutes go by and we get the cocktails. While waiting for the cocktails the waiter came back and we ordered our meals. Please note I had also preordered the seafood platter. The cocktails arrived and also the starters yet the kids soft drinks were no where to be seen. I reminded the waiter. When we had finished the starter we asked another waiter to order some wine and a beer. This waiter realized I had ordered a very expensive bottle of wine and confirmed this with me, which I appreciated as I had made a mistake. My husbands entrees arrived, it was the wrong one but he ate it. The kids meals arrived. My sons was wrong and we asked so the waiter mumbled and brought the right one out. The seafood platter came out in 2 parts cold first. This was half edible. I had to ask for water to wash my hands as no bowl was provided for shells etc. Plenty of time went by and the cold platter remained on the table and the hot came out to be served. My husband asked if the cold could be removed. Unfortunately the hot platter was put down then the cold removed which had water streaming from the plate and nearly pouring into my elderly mum. I cleaned this with my napkin. This is where the food hit an all time disgust. The oysters kilpatrick were horrendous. The scallops under cooked, the scampi meat unable to remove from the shell, the chips fried like the dirtiest fish and chip shop. When our waiter came back he asked how the meal was and this is where we spoke up. He mumbled some more, my mum asked if he was actually listening to us all while making us feel uncomfortable invading our personal space and then wandered off. We were gob smacked. A few minutes later the manager came over. My husband started complaing about the meal and the manager said they have never had complaints like this before. This is where I stepped in at the defensive attitude towards us. She offered to remove the plates. Our waiter came back with a complete mood shift towards us. Now he was cold and even weirder than what he had been all afternoon. Our deserts ordered and left. Still no offering of wine pouring or waters. Anything. Our deserts arrived and again my daughters dessert was incorrect. I reminded him of this. This dessert was just ok. This meal was at $125 per adult and $55 per child. Plus any drinks ordered or extras. This type of expense should come with 5 star service and food. Introduction of the food, allergy requests, water pouring, napkin placement, wine pouring. Not the invasion of personal space, unaware of the menu on offer, defensive behavior , substandard food. I would also like to mention upon payment we did receive a discount from the same manager and a genuine apology. I appreciate that as she thought about our interaction and did what she could to fix it. Please note though unfortunately we won’t be returning until chefs are changed and staff trained to a higher standard. We will be telling friends of our experience as we don’t want them to suffer what we went through. Time is precious with our families. I work many Sunday’s and I’m glad I was with my family but this experience was...

I went to Summer Salt recently to check out the restaurant and try out the food. Overall I was satisfied with the experience and I would recommend it to anyone in the area, however there are drawbacks...

I went there two times. The first was when we ordered a Fillet Mignon and a side order of chips and drinks. The second time was when we ordered a Rib-Eye steak with a side order of chips, and two deserts a meringue souffle and a passion fruit creme caramel.

As a whole things took about 40 minutes to reach our table (on both occasions) from the time that we ordered our mains. They tried to interest us with some entrees, but nothing on offer was really all that appealing.

The food on the first occasion with the Fillet Mignon was good, however it lacked any appropriate sides and didn't feel wholesome. On the second occasion the Rib-Eye Fillet was much better, however the fillet itself was kept frozen for a long time and it showed on the actual contour of the meat. This time around I had no complaints with the sides, as the mashed beetroot pure and asparagus worked well in combination. The final presentation of the food and deserts was perfect on both occasions.

The deserts were great, however I was confused with the terminology, usually when people refer to a souffle, it's not a meringue top with bits of shredded fruit inside. What I got on this occasion was disappointing and made me question the price. How can you guys charge so much for a $2 desert? The Creme Caramel was nice, however the hint of passion fruit was unnecessary and a little overpowering.

The prices were on the higher end side, which was not completely justified. You are paying about four times as much for the mains as you would if you made it at home. The steak, beetroot, and asparagus combination is no hard chore, and didn't really go above and beyond for the price. Had they served a nice portion of steak that was fresh from the butcher (not frozen for a few weeks) then I would be more satisfied to pay the higher price. Further, the meringue souffle takes 3 egg whites, sugar and an oven to make, you could make it for under $2, it was priced on the menu for a lot more than that! If you're paying around the $20 mark there should be some "fun risk" involved in the food - I was hoping for a real souffle that rises!

The restaurant had really nice clean table covers, great seating, and I enjoyed the placement at the time. Sadly the ambiance of the venue was a little on the loud side!

As a side note I also noticed two things, our table was small, and it took a really long time to get served after we finished our meal. The waiters would avoid eye contact or pretend to ignore us as they didn't want the extra hassle of serving their main table and another table on top of that. This happened on three occasions, I tried to call a waiter over but they just looked away and pretended to do something else.

To conclude, this isn't a 5 star restaurant, It needs a lot of improvement with the wholesomeness of the food, the table amenities, the waiters etiquette, and a slight review of the...