The Rooftop Bar & Grill

Friday night dinner at the Rooftop Bar & Grill at Bannisters Pavilion. The place was alive and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. Full house. Very busy, but a pleasant fun atmosphere. See our choices in the pics. No negatives here…all good. Friendly capable service and a shout out to Caitlin who looked after us really well. We ordered a number of small dishes to share, and then finished with a main of Prawn Linguini with a side of broccolini…all very good. Recommended.

This review is specifically for The Rooftop Bar and Grill. The food and fit out are good. Unfortunately, the experience is let down by the service. This isn’t because the staff are rude. It’s just because there is too great a disparity between the prices charges ($50 mains) and quality of the service, which is more consistent with that of an average cafe. We had to ask about our drinks twice and had food sitting at the kitchen (that we could see) waiting to be picked up while staff were walking around packing up chairs while customers were still eating. This is a restaurant that sells $999 bottles of wine with management and service below that of a good cafe. We may have simply caught them on a poor night, but we won’t be rushing back.

Writing this review from our hotel balcony while eating takeaway pizza. We booked this dinner experience well in advance to celebrate my 30th birthday. We arrived on time and were greeted by a pleasant staff member at the desk. After waiting some time, we eventually ordered at around 6:40pm after flagging down a staff member. By 8:00pm, we left without ever receiving our meals. No explanation or apology. During this time, we watched multiple groups arrive, dine, and leave, while we were not served. This was easily the worst dining experience I’ve had. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t return or recommend this venue.

ROOFTOP BAR AND GRILL REVIEW ONLY: My partner and I dined here tonight and decided to share our meal - an entree and a main. Lucky we weren't that hungry because the portion sizes were tiny! The main ($50), a very dry piece of barramundi, could have easily passed for an entree size, no bigger than 2 fish fingers. Given its associated with Rick Stein, I would have expected more! We mentioned this to the waiter who acknowledged how small the portion was and then asked us if we wanted to order more! Value for money would have sufficed!!! Definitely expected more in coming here!

Arrogant and abysmal. The waitress forgot my order to which I was very understanding as we were a table of 10. I mentioned to her that my food didn’t come and just requested it wasn’t put on the bill. Instead of apologising she just said “well I saved you some money then” and left. Beyond that the other swordfish which arrived was overcooked, over salted and wildly underwhelming. We moved on with the dinner and were talking at a normal volume, and as the table began to laugh she came up and told us to all not be so loud. We said we can’t make any promises as we were a bit over their awful attitude at this point to which she said “you better try”. For this price point, this behaviour is not acceptable. The service is crap, the food is worse and you aren’t even allowed to laugh at your table. I will never return.