Vela Dining & Bar — Restaurant in Sydney

Food was good apart from the very OVER cooked crunchy calamari (guests told me it was like eating little rocks) If you’re booking a group function, here are a few things to be very mindful about. The restaurant is VERY VERY strict, example most decorations are not approved I had to down scale my decorations to suit the restaurant which was fine as I understand the restaurant is not big however when my 3 confetti balloons arrived the party hire lady was told “you can’t have them they will block the view” even though I had them approved earlier. I requested weeks in advance for the kid’s pasta to be changed to penne instead of spaghetti, no one acknowledged my email and the kids were served spaghetti on the day. (Clearly not interested in my requests) I confirmed having a cake table 3 times and on the day was told I couldn’t have one, unfortunately during church service I was texting the Vela events coordinator making sure it was there before my quests arrived which was thankfully rectified however extremely unnecessary to have to organise this while sitting in mass when this was already agreed and confirmed weeks prior. I was initially told “we charge to have a cake table” but we won’t charge you like they were doing me this huge favor. Cakeage fee – PLAIN RUDE RUDE RUDE I have absolutely no issue in paying the $3.50 PER PERSON cakeage fee providing my guests are served per person our cake was cut up and placed in the middle of the table for guests to serve themselves. It was not in writing on any of my paperwork the online group 2 menu states “a cakeage fee of $3.50 pp applies should you like to bring a celebration cake” It does not state we will charge you per person but place the cake in the middle of the table for everyone to serve themselves. I raised this at the end of the lunch while paying the bill and was given an extremely pathetic excuse that they would now have to go gather the cake and place it in take away containers. I was also later told the cake is meant to be served with the other sharing desserts from the menu which makes no sense as the waitress asked me what I would prefer to do first, cut the cake or have the shared desserts first there was no mention of them being served all together, regardless if I’m paying PER PERSON I expect to be served PER PERSON plain and simple. 2 extra bottles of red wine were opened towards the very end, no guests had requested more wine nor was I asked if 2 extra bottles should be opened, both bottles were completely full to the top upon leaving to which I requested for 1 of my guests to take home. The staff were so overwhelmed and stressed it was very obvious to all my guests, 1 staff member accidentally bumped into another staff member, she was so angry she proceeded to shove 3 chairs very aggressively, The staff really set such an awful tone to what was meant to be such a special day. Possibly a nice restaurant to just have dinner, but the service quality is definitely not what I would expect during a fine dining function especially...

Overall, the food is excellent, the service personnel are very polite and accommodating and the views of the bay are excellent - I highly recommend it for that.

We went there for dinner for two. The service staff were very accommodating and nice. For starters and entrée we had some bread basket and calamari; bread was fresh and nice whereas calamari were excellent and the side salad, especially the dressing was very well matched. For mains, we ordered duck and barramundi. I am used to having duck French style (i.e., blue) this was cooked well but to my surprise the chef did an excellent job and it was soft and tender - amazing. Overall a very nice experience. The “Silver Hammer” Shiraz is excellent there. Lemon tart and chocolate soufflé were really well done.

Why only 4 and not 5 stars? To start we had cocktails - Coco Mango was great, yet Sunset Daquiri was somewhat bland red berry frappée with not much taste or alcohol - this one might benefit from some revisiting or revising. Furthermore, it was served 15 minutes later than the first, which was a bit annoying. The bread basket was nice and it came with olives and olive oil - all were very good. Though, it was advertised as marinated olives but they were just plain brine olives and the quantity was rather symbolic, so after eating two slices of bread you are left with a lot of bread with nothing to go with - perhaps a bit more olives and oil would have done the trick. The pudding (i.e., “desert” dishes) we were told, was going to take 20 minutes to prepare, yet 25 minutes later we were told that they were running late and in the end we waited another 20 to get it - though, they were doing their best considering that they had a massive party function going on at the same time and were a bit understaffed.

Also, funny enough, my wife and I received two different menus for pudding. One, obviously, was older with cheaper prices and the other, a more updated version, with more expensive prices. I did not bother making a fuss about that.

My last peeve, which probably won’t matter for most, is that what some waiters wore, could have been a bit more elegant, which is an important touch for me if you want to have a nice evening for two. However, that might just me being...

My partner and I went for dinner tonight, arriving 30 mins prior to our reservation we thought we would order a drink at the outdoor bar. Big mistake.. No one wiping tables between customers. We ordered ordered 1x strawberry daiquiri which took 30 mins to be made, and we had to ask for as we were making our way inside to our reservation. No one checked that we signed in when seated in the restaurant. We waited 15 mins before a waitress served us tap water, not asking if we wanted still or sparkling or any other drinks. Another 15 mins went by and a different waitress came to read the specials and notify us that they were out of oysters (what seafood restaurant runs out of oysters on a Saturday night!). This completely changed what we had planned to order, but because we had waited for so long we didn't want her to leave resulting in another long wait, so we quickly ordered something else. Food came out quick and was delicious, although not worth the $55 for steak and 2x prawns and some beans. If we had driven we would've left and gone elsewhere, but with an 8pm reservation and catching a ferry to and from what was supposed to be a lovely evening out, left my partner and I frustrated with the service. We spent $120 on food and $22 on a cocktail and sprite. Given the time we were there and if they had all their menu items available we would usually spend a lot more, but dashed out before dessert. Certainly wouldn't recommend and don't looking to go back...