Taronga Food Market — Restaurant in Sydney

Taronga Zoo is a fantastic place with incredible animal exhibits, breathtaking views, and well-maintained facilities. It’s a great spot for families and visitors of all ages. However, the food options are a major letdown. The food market serves very ordinary, uninspiring meals with little creativity—just basic fast food with no real variety. Given the high standard of the zoo itself, the dining experience feels out of place.

Taronga would benefit greatly from improving its food service, perhaps by introducing a dedicated restaurant with better quality meals instead of just fast-food options. It would enhance the visitor experience and likely attract more people who want to enjoy a full day at the zoo without compromising on food quality.

If you’re visiting, I highly recommend bringing your own food to avoid disappointment. Hopefully, Taronga Zoo considers upgrading its dining options in the future to match the amazing experience they...

There is seating indoors and out, however indoors is not air conditioned and got quite hot with the amount of people and hot food inside. There are serving bays of pre-made food such as burgers, nuggets, fries, chicken and some rice dishes etc. Much like a cafeteria, you slide along a tray and grab your plastic baskets of food. There are refrigerated bays with prepackaged sandwiches and salads, fruit, yoghurt etc. There are also snacks such as chips and cold drinks available. Once you have picked your food/drinks, you take your tray to a counter similar to that at a grocery shop. Considering this, the prices were very expensive and as you can imagine, the food and service weren't great.

Tip: I would recommend packing a picnic lunch or small esky if you're going to the zoo, though it is difficult to lug multiple bags around the...

The food at the zoo goes up and down in quality and price.

Today we ordered a vege burger (which had a deep fried patty and a single piece of tomato - what the?), a beef burger (beef cheese and one pickle), both come with chips; and two kids chips with chicken nuggets (not fresh chicken but processed “meat”). Présentation zero. Looked absolutely disgusting. Taste one out of five. Absence of any content that makes a burger $16 - yep. If you had asked how much this was worth, I’d say $6 for the burger and $3 for the chips. At most. Being generous.

Advice - with covid (and no social distancing being applied inside the food hall) - take a home made lunch to the zoo. But watch for the Ibis - they haven’t been fed for months and are ravenous!

We’ve been coming as zoo friends to Taronga zoo for 8 years - this was the worst...