The Oriental Hotel Springwood — Restaurant in Sydney

I’ve been supporting this pub for over a decade and have previously had only nice things to say. Our last visit was so disappointing I won’t ever bother going back. My friends and I thought it would be fun to enjoy some cocktails with our dinner and support the Cocktail Happy Hour that they’ve been promoting for some time. When we went to order there were no prices against any of the drinks on the cocktail menu. We queried a few different ones and they were all over $18 even with the 25% discount applied. Which possibly makes them the most overpriced cocktails in the mountains. I have no problem paying $25 in a fine dining establishment but this is literally a sports bar. And it took more than 20 minutes to make those 3 cocktails.

Even the exorbitant pricing and long wait time I could live with, but the thing that really bothered me to the point of writing this review was one of the waitstaff in the bistro. The woman with the blonde ponytail was so rude and condescending regarding the fact that we were even ordering cocktails. “We don’t really do cocktails here” she says. Umm, the big banner out the front would beg to disagree. It’s not the first time I’ve heard her speak like that to customers either. On top of that, when my dinner arrived it was only just warm rather than hot but I felt very uncomfortable saying anything after the way she’d just spoken to me. Thankfully there are already lots of other great places to eat in Springwood, and more opening up soon, so I’m definitely avoiding this one...

Overpriced and pretty mediocre service. There were several dead flies right next to me on the window sill which was a lil off putting. Service was not great, hospitality rule 1 is to serve the customers first and then clean tables... we were ready to place an order and waiter walked over to table next to us and when we told him we were ready to order literally told us he'd be with us in a second and proceeded to clear table and walk away instead of taking order and then clearing the table next to us. One staff came to take our drinks order and when we asked for water, she forgot and 15min later we had to ask another staff to bring as she forgot. My vegetarian gnocchi was very good however but for a medium-small sized portion $25 was a bit high, which was the cheapest thing on the mains menu. For some reason the staff in the kitchen kept dropping things and making a racket, including pouring a container full of cutlery into a draw lol... The aesthetics of this place are plain and lack any creativity or design. Coffee...

Long time patron of the Ori...but no more. It was my mum's 89th birthday. She requested the Ori. Sat inside, staff were pleasant. The food was dire!, Ordered classic battered flathead. 3 teeny battered strips arrived after quite a wait; all batter, no fish. The batter was, and I'm not exaggerating for effect here, like shoe leather. It was as if it had been sitting cooked somewhere since yesterday and then reheated in the microwave. The chips were ordinary oven chips, not the nice ones you usually get in a pub, and the salad was like you'd find in a bag at Coles. My poor mum left most of hers, and once we were home we both agreed that it was the worst lunch we'd ever had. She tells me that the pub at the other end of Springwood does much better food...definitely we'll...