The Botanist — Restaurant in Sydney

Five years on from my initial review, The Botanist functions at full capacity like a well-oiled machine. Arriving ahead of my party, I’m quickly settled at our table with the pair of Smoke & Mirrors ($18) I ordered at the bar delivered right to me. It’s a likeable mezcal-based cocktail combining smoky Del Maguey Vida Mezcal with poached mandarin, lemon, mint and orange bitters balanced with a cinnamon sugar rim.

The beer list holds interest too, producing a La Sirène Citray Sour ($11) made with real oranges that have been naturally soured and brewed with naturally occurring indigenous yeast in inner city Melbourne. It’s sharp and enjoyable, though I prefer Sailor’s Grave Brewing’s Down She Gose ($12) with its gently salty tang, citrus and seaweed - think of it as the endless Aussie beach-side summer captured in a can.

As the long tables around me quickly fill up with large groups, staff show their skill in patron wrangling. Despite packing a few too many people around our table making it less than comfortable, particularly when people walked past, there were pleasantly few hiccups. The Botanist Banquet ($49/head) is applied as a matter of course to all big groups.

Kicking off with marinated olives, it’s an eight-course affair selected from their main menu of share plates. As we moved through a healthy-tasting buffalo ricotta and spinach dip with flat bread, I noted that the kitchen has clearly chosen a menu they are confident about delivering quickly. Our table was never devoid of food, with my highlights being the pretty plates of well-smoked buffalo mozzarella with macerated peaches, thyme and honey, and the char-grilled chicken with smoked paprika, wild grains and radish, tempered by whipped buttermilk.

While I didn’t quite understand why the promised tajima waygu had to be switched out for Tuscan roast pork belly (communication is challenging in the ear-splittingly loud space), I did like the treatment of the crisp skinned pig. Apple and sweet and sour peppers both helped to cut the fatty richness. Fun dishes, like wooden paddles of oxtail croquettes, were well received at our table. With their rich meaty intensity balanced with preserved lemon, sharp capers, and a dab of green romesco, it was hard to stop at eating just one.

Our table of thirteen friends opted to avoid complex restaurant accounting by each ordering our drinks at the bar. While our request was accommodated, we could have done without the snippy comment from staff: “it kind of defeats the point of table service.” Regardless, The Botanist is definitely eating better than it did on my first visit,...

As we are new to the area, this was a first for all 3 of us. We chose The Botanist after google searching and reading reviews on several restaurants in our area and I’m glad to report that I am more than pleased with my choice. The occasion was my mum’s 88th Birthday and we wanted her to experience something a little different to her norm. The only little hiccup, was getting her onto the highly set banquette. The high seating throughout, and the very steep staircase at the entry, are perhaps the only critiques I have to give but if told beforehand, at least you can chose if you’re unable to cope. (Reason for 4 out of 5 stars) We chose 3 Small plates, 1 large plate, a side dish and a dessert. This was ample for us and in Botanist style, all plates were shared, which was a great experience and allowed us to savour so many different flavours. Each dish was full of wonderful flavours and each seemed to complement the next. We chose the the Duck liver pâté, the smoked Mozzarella salad, the Riccotta gnocchi, the twice cooked potatoes, the Trout for our main plate and finished with the Vanilla, orange and thyme cake. Every dish was a flavour explosion but our favourite was definitely the gnocchi. Our waitress, Jade, was a delight and she surprised mum with a sparkler on her cake, which she loved. The staff in general were very friendly and the atmosphere is relaxed and cosy. Almost a “cosy pub” ambience with music but the food is definitely way “up there”. We will definitely return with friends and would recommend it highly! PS: we were surprised how busy it was for a Tuesday night, so I would imagine it’s noisy and very busy on weekends. Perhaps something to...

OVERALL: Food was mostly tasty but somewhat uneven; service very good but sometimes overbearing; atmosphere was elegant but seating was very uncomfortable.

THE FOOD: The arrancini were fantastic, as were the warm Australian olives. The burrata was overpriced considering that it came served in a bed of mediocre roasted red pepper with stale sourdough. At $28 for just a starter, I would have expected fresh bread at least. The fried cauliflower and cabbage pancake mains were standouts, though the cabbage was a bit too sweet (which I guess I should have expected since it was described as "sugarloaf cabbage pancake"). The sides were all good value, though the "roasted" potatoes seemed to be fried, not roasted. Everything was very oily. Light cuisine this is not.

SERVICE: Attentive and effusive in the American style ("My name is X and I'll be your server today. Let me tell you about the Botanist!"). Drinks were constantly topped up unobtrusively, but on the other hand, servers frequently interrupted conversations to ask how we were doing.

ATMOSPHERE: Elegant setting, but the tables and chairs are packed in very tight so the servers struggled to squeeze between people, and being seated so close to neighbours made for a loud environment. Most importantly, the chairs were the most uncomfortable I have ever sat in. I have read that restaurant chairs are often made to be deliberately uncomfortable in order to encourage diners not to linger so that they can have a higher turnover, and the Botanist's seating could be the illustrative case study here.

I would probably return another time except for those...