Watson's EQ — Restaurant in Sydney

I'd have to say this is the worst dining experience I've ever had... except I never actually had the opportunity to dine here.

My husband and I went here today on a Sunday afternoon and it was pretty busy. We sat down outside and ordered food and drinks via the QR code at the table. Maybe about 10 minutes later my husband's beer came out and then nothing. I knew it was busy so didn't want to hassle them but finally I checked the time stamp on when I ordered our food and 50 minutes later I became inpatient and we asked when our food was coming out. All we got were responses like "sorry, there's a 1 hour delay on food." 15 minutes later we enquired again only to get the same response. In the meantime, I saw tables that were seated and ordered a good 30-45 minutes after us getting their food. Finally, AN HOUR AND A HALF after we ordered, my husband was pushy and insisted we get an ETA on our food and THEY HAD SERVED IT TO THE WRONG TABLE. If we hadn't been pushy about when our particular order would have arrived we would have still probably been getting generic responses like saying there was an hour delay on food.

My husband insisted that since they made a mistake that they prioritise our order, which I think is fair. They told him that there were 70 other orders pending and that we would just have to wait, and that the earliest we would get our food was another half an hour. Being pregnant and made to already wait for 1.5 hours, I was not prepared to wait and risk the same thing happening again, and they issued us a full refund. The guy even made a comment that he was doing us a favour because he refunded the full amount so at least the beer my husband drank was free, which is frankly just insulting.

I wish I was exaggerating about the amount of time we were waiting around for food that was never coming, but I have the time stamps on the order I made and when we were finally refunded to prove it.

Horrible service and even worse customer service to not even offer some kind of compensation for wasting our time. Sorry, but 1 beer over 1.5 hours doesn't cut it as compensation. I can't believe I wasted nearly 2 hours of my day sitting here...

We’ve been to the EQ on numerous occasions before or after a footy match and always keen for a bite to eat. We love that the pub has been revamped as Watson’s with a brilliant new menu and drinks to boot.

The space is huge and suits all crowds, whether it be a group of friends for drinks, a girly catch up, work lunch or family outing. It would also be well suited for larger celebrations and the whole feel is comfortable and casual and we love that you can dine outside in the beer garden under the trees, lit with fairy lights.

The interior is vibrant with dark wooden joinery and navy tones, a sleek bar and big screen for the sporting action. The two storey venue also has plenty of room inside with a bistro area or upstairs area with a function space overlooking the beer garden and Hordern Pavilion.

The menu here has all your pub favourites, that use quality seasonal ingredients, cooked well and served beautifully. Head chef Uriel Kilala has put together a great menu that will suit all crowds with small starters, burgers, schnitties, steaks and salads. There’s also dishes to share like their flatbreads or Cobb loaf, and even 1kg Ranger Valley Black Onyx Grain Fed Rib Eye.

Watson’s is also family friendly with a kids menu that offers more than just chicken nuggets. There is even a Rigatoni Lamb Ragu or tacos.

We shared oysters, the salmon ceviche tostadas, a parmy, rib eye and the lovely roasted cauliflower salad! The food was all of a high standard and really well suited to us sharing.

The menu is also well suited to having a drink or two and there’s a great range of beers by the bottle and on tap, wines and cocktails. We had a pale ale, sour and a darn good espresso martini.

We think the venue is a great place for your next outing and suggest arranging your next...

I was one of a party of seven who had the misfortune of choosing Watson’s pub at Moore Park for lunch this Sunday 5/2/23. Very quiet, not many customers. Drinks were ok but expensive. Meals were poor to say the least. Two of us had the Prawn linguine which came out with utterly bland lukewarm pasta, absolutely zero sauce and a scattering of tasteless prawns. Upon taking both meals back, we were told by the chef who didn’t come out of the kitchen to talk to us, that, “that is how prawn linguine is made”. Only following our disagreeing with his statement, he offered to make us two more. We declined and went with the Rump and a Parma for replacement meals. The bartender did not ask how I would like the steak cooked, nor did he offer an apology nor offer to bring the replacement meals out. The steak was ok. The sauce was bland, lumpy and cold. The chips for all of our meals were terrible, as if they had been refried several times, dark, dry and shrivelled. The Parma was sub par with a slosh of lukewarm tomato paste smeared over it, accompanied with poor quality ham and cheese. Two of the ladies had the chicken Caesar salad. The salads came with soggy Iceberg lettuce (not Cos) and meagre croutons. The salads had large dry chunks of chicken placed on top. All devoid of any flavour. The Quinoa salad was drowned in lemon. The recipient of the chicken schnitzel now feels a bit crook in his stomach. We were seated for around two hours the whole of which time no one came to clear our table nor ask how the meals were. Again, the place was nearly empty. Bad food, bad...