Bulli Beach Cafe — Restaurant in Wollongong City Council

Bulli beach cafe has got to be one of the best positioned venues in the Illawarra. Absolutely stunning. Unfortunately the potential is what makes the poor dining experience even more disappointing! From time to time we will have visitors down from Sydney and a few times have taken them to this spot to really show off the beauty of our spot! Unfortunately we’ve often been let down by the restaurant’s food and service.

The most recent visit, we had friends visit, so we booked a table for 4 online which was seamless. It was a bit off-putting that we didn’t have table service when most lunch meals were $20+. A table service app would be much better off - like me&u which is used by so many other illawarra venues. The husbands lined up and ordered 3x fisherman’s baskets, a lamb dish and drinks. We were surprised when 1x fisherman’s basket arrived, we said surely it wasn’t ours as we only ordered 5 minutes ago and had ordered 3 of them. The waiter told us “they pump out the eat in orders so you don’t go over your 1.5hr seating time”. Can confirm that doesn’t make you feel like a valued customer .. we accepted the fisherman’s basket thinking the other 2 must not be far behind then. But we were wrong - unfortunately we waited another 20 minutes for the second dish, then received the lamb dish after 25 minutes. After 45 minutes the final fisherman’s basket still hadn’t arrived. We could understand the restaurant appeared quite busy so we thought the food might take a while but to have our dishes arrive so far apart defeated the entire purpose of dining out- we didn’t even get to enjoy a meal together! My husband went to check and was met with some rude staff who asked if he “wanted another one”, when he said he didn’t receive it. They delivered it 5 minutes later but didn’t give him any cutlery, so then he had to chase the waiter back and ask for cutlery, again they said “do you want more cutlery?” - no it took us 50 minutes to get his dish and was never given cutlery! An apology would be nice. The food was bland and disappointing- my pulled lamb had a sauce but absolutely no flavour - I suspect it was defrosted or from a packet as it was watery. The fisherman’s basket was ok for the price but not great quality. We had planned on getting coffee as well but after that experience we had enough and got out of there ASAP.

All in all, we’ve finally learnt our lesson to never go back. A waste of money, a waste of time. Very sad to see such a beautiful, iconic venue with so much lost potential. Next time I’ll have a picnic on the grass right next door, and pray for new...

What a beautiful location to have such a terrible experience. After being seated at a dirty table with sticky menus I made my way to line up where they have set up a waiting area, only to have the counter staff serve three people who cut in line. Disappointed but hungry, I order my meal shocked to see the price for three meals is over $70.00 (This included one small kids juice by the way, no extra drinks). After going back to my dirty table the meals arrive and I notice that my $19 ‘burger’ is sandwiched between two pieces of bread with an onion that was obviously scared of knives because I think it had only been sliced three times…. Honestly, you could play ring toss with these giant onions, biting into them took some force and then I start tearing up…. The rest of the order was incorrect and after questioning the price to ensure I wasn’t overcharged I can see that I have been charged for a full serve of chips rather than a side of chips, no sauce was provided despite being charged an additional fee (After being asked it did finally arrive) and when questioned over why the prices on the menu did not match the receipt, I was told there was a weekend surcharge (Which is fine but note that it is hidden in the food price rather than shown as a surcharge). So far the experience has been pretty poor but whatever, let’s just enjoy our view and finish our food without anything else getting in the way…. Nope, Bulli Beach Cafe has a business to run so we were asked to move tables while mid-bite of my giant onion filled toasted sandwich to accommodate some new customers… Flabbergasted, I pulled one of the giant onion hula hoops out of my mouth and questioned everything I had learnt about hospitality since being a small child sweeping floors of my fathers hotel. The look on my face must have been enough to indicate I would be unwilling to move tables at this time since the waiter let me know that despite his request it would be ok for us to remain at our dirty table to finish off our onion frisbee ‘burger’. Disappointed the waiter left but not before cramming 11 people inches from our face as the request to move tables turned into a hostile takeover of sorts. I said to my family with a disheartening tone “Looks like they want us out of here” my son replied “but Dad, what about your onion toasty?” With tears in my eyes, we got up and left. Defeated, still hungry and with a hole in our wallets. View was...

Bulli beach cafe is located in a spectacular spot on Bulli beach. The location begs for a venue that caters for both the breakfast and midday cafe crowd and then transforms into a cozy and relaxed restaurant for it’s night service. Unfortunate Bulli Beach Cafe has all the potential but seems to miss the mark and comes up wanting.

An old true and tested method for picking a good place to eat is to go where the locals go. I have been a resident of the Bulli beach area all my life and I rarely see locals patronising this venue. There are a few major reasons for this. A big shortfall is that dogs are not only not welcome but there are signs stating that your fur baby isn’t aloud within 10 meters of the premises... not off to a good start. Also, the signage pointing out that sittings are limited to 1.5hrs is a little off putting. If I was going to order their $120 seafood platter I would want to take my time for that price!

Once you are in the venue it just comes across as confused. It seems to be clinging to its former life as a fish and chip kiosk where diners are still expected to go up to the counter and order their food which is priced more in the table service range. The decor is also cluttered and clumsy with Buddha heads and other Balinese paraphernalia scattered randomly throughout.

On the day I visited I opted to just get take out. Firstly issue is that you can’t phone your order through with only walk in orders taken. I was also surprised to find that the 15% public holiday surcharge was applied to take away orders.

I ordered the chicken schnitzel with Oscar topping with fries and salad. The meal came in a cardboard take away container and I was disappointed to find the salad was included in the hot food container; no one wants hot salad with their meal. The schnitzel was well cooked with a crispy crumbed batter covering juicy and tender chicken. The topper was disappointing for the $7 addition it was a dollop of guacamole and three prawns. There was also supposed to be garlic sauce but it was applied sparingly. The fries were average.

It’s such a shame that this venue hasn’t been better established because it could be amazing! I think it is owned by A bigger parent company so maybe it it missing the passion of an...