The Lounge — Restaurant in Sydney

I recently stayed at Lilianfels for the night to celebrate my grandmothers 80th birthday. The check in process was seamless and the team were really helpful in finding a phone charger for us which we appreciated. The downfalls of our stay: the next morning when we attended the restaurant for breakfast it was rather busy so we were seated in the lounge area and were fine with this however it did mean that the service was less than ideal ?maybe due to where we were located. We asked for a pot of tea and waited 40 minutes for this and had to ask a few times and different staff in order to finally get it. It also took a very long time to receive a few poached eggs so by the time we received these the others having breakfast with us were long finished their meal, we can appreciate it seemed quite busy though it did lessen the experience having to wait nearly half an hour for this. We also accidentally left behind 2 bottles of shampoo/conditioner in the bathroom and when I called the hotel as soon as I realised with the hope of popping back to pick them up, the hotel staff stated they didn’t see anything - incredibly frustrating as we definitely left these behind and so lost over $100 worth of shampoo and conditioner that had only just been opened during this stay! We had an enjoyable stay however for the price and our experience, we won’t be back...

We were there 3 days ago, so excited to have hightea, but did not meet our expectations. We were taken to our table by Waitress who was very abrupt, she could only ask us if we wanted water, we need to leave by 1pm & when asked if we wanted coffee or tea we ordered & was told "that will cost you more money" When hightea arrived it looked amazing but hot food was cold pie tasted like it just came out of the fridge. The scones were so hard that the person I was with couldn't eat it due to it hurting her teeth. The desserts weren't too bad. But experience had already left bad taste in our mouths. Halfway through hightea we ordered another pot of tea & coffee knowing we had to pay & after 30mins & asking few times where it was, we finally got it. I expressed my disappointment. We felt like second class citizens. Not once did anyone come to refill our water glasses in 1.5hrs we were there. The staff in white aprons that bought us hightea & beverages were lovely, very professional & kind they should actually be wearing the black outfits. The stars...

We booked well ahead expecting a premium (gluten free) high tea experience but were totally disappointed with high tea. The bread was dry and inedible. The scones looked home made but were chewy and heavy, nothing like a light, fresh scone. When we arrived, we were hungry and started with a Caesar salad and calamari - delicious. The atmosphere, comfort and service were excellent. It was a quiet week day, so just enough parking outside and quietly enjoyable inside. The Lounge has reputation for good quality high tea but was awful for GF. Better not to offer what you can’t deliver. Offered a discount and apology.

By way of contrast, the Pot Belly in Medlow Bath in Railway Street offered a wonderful range of home made GF sweet and savoury food without the pricey luxury...