Galileo
The Observatory Hotel
89-113 Kent St
Sydney, NSW 2000
$$$$$
Another birthday celebration, last week with my team at work 🙂 Last time we went to Galileo, they had awesome food and service, but left a bad taste in our mouths because of their “10% surcharge” which they chased us for. Since it’s Good Food Month, we decided to try it again since they had a Let’s Do Lunch! special. But guess what?
THEY DID IT AGAIN!!
The meal was superb, I’ll give them that. The Slow Cooked Kurobuta Pork Belly with Cardamon Sauce and Asian Greens was just stunning – the pork belly was perfectly tender and fatty and the slightly sweet sauce gave it an Asian flavour. There was also the Duck version for those that weren’t keen on pork, but they only (reluctantly) agreed to it after much deliberation. The wine was lovely and matched the pork beautifully, but we skipped dessert since we didn’t want to stuff ourselves.
Coffee came after the meal. But only coffee, no tea! So what happens if you want a tea? Well, “there’s a surcharge”, we were told. THEY CAN GO TO HELL WITH THEIR RIDICULOUS SURCHARGES!! For such a fine-dining and $$$ restaurant, you’d think they wouldn’t be so tacky as to try to dig as much money as possible from their customers. Really disappointed, not to mention, angered us.
Galileo is a strike-out for me. Thumbs down. Shame on you!
Brown Brothers white wine
Slow Cooked Kurobuta Pork Belly with Cardamon Sauce and Asian Greens
Slow Cooked Duck with Cardamon Sauce and Asian Greens
My wonderful team
Some fancy restaurants in London have this so called ‘cover charge’. I think it is totally ridiculous! My boyfriend and I were in London last year to celebrate our anniversary, we went to this really fine Indian restaurant. Before we even order the food, the waiter told us there was 5 pounds cover charge per person!!! Cant you belive it?! We paid 10 pounds cover charge for nothing and later on the bill came with another 10% service charge!
Hi, I found your blog a couple days ago and I just wanted to say how much I enjoy the photos and your commentary. I can’t believe there’s a surcharge for tea – that would really bug me and I understand how it might make people not want to come back.
I’m still struggling to come to terms with your $100 lobster from the other day … but then again, my idea of a meal out is a trip to the local KFC. 😉
Katie
http://www.byootaful.com
ugh that is so tacky. i hate it when snotty places like that think they can charge you for every little thing. So tacky. If they were really a good restaurant and a fine dining experience they wouldn’t have a surchage for everything. Ugh. Bad reviews travel fast. that place better shape up! I’m sure you guys can find better food elsewhere that’s not so snotty. 🙂
That sucked. We had an ok experience when we went last week (there were only 3 of us though) but service was no where near as good as other restaurants in the same price range. I suggest you try Guillaume at Bennelong. Amazing food and the service was so good I left a big fat tip.
The constant price-increases of Galileo’s was enough to deter me.. I don’t think I went back for the surcharge… I stand by my word, even though Galileo’s used to be one of my favourites..
Shame though. This place used to be good value for some great food. I imagine it being somewhat like a 3rd world country slowly finding its footing as a first world.. except that Galileo’s always been attached to a 5-star hotel. It’s Bilson’s for me 🙂
I hadn’t noticed they were increasing their prices, but all their random charges are appalling. Such a shame, because otherwise i reckon they’d be a fab restaurant
You are so popular with so many birthday celebrations. Shame about the restaurant, why don’t they just raise prices overall instead of adding surcharges everywhere?
Not so much popular as a foodaholic, I reckon 😛
I still woudln’t want the restaurant to raise their prices.. just to not be so greedy, grrr!
Some fancy restaurants in London have this so called ‘cover charge’. I think it is totally ridiculous! My boyfriend and I were in London last year to celebrate our anniversary, we went to this really fine Indian restaurant. Before we even order the food, the waiter told us there was 5 pounds cover charge per person!!! Cant you belive it?! We paid 10 pounds cover charge for nothing and later on the bill came with another 10% service charge!
Hi, I found your blog a couple days ago and I just wanted to say how much I enjoy the photos and your commentary. I can’t believe there’s a surcharge for tea – that would really bug me and I understand how it might make people not want to come back.
I’m still struggling to come to terms with your $100 lobster from the other day … but then again, my idea of a meal out is a trip to the local KFC. 😉
Katie
http://www.byootaful.com
ugh that is so tacky. i hate it when snotty places like that think they can charge you for every little thing. So tacky. If they were really a good restaurant and a fine dining experience they wouldn’t have a surchage for everything. Ugh. Bad reviews travel fast. that place better shape up! I’m sure you guys can find better food elsewhere that’s not so snotty. 🙂
That sucked. We had an ok experience when we went last week (there were only 3 of us though) but service was no where near as good as other restaurants in the same price range. I suggest you try Guillaume at Bennelong. Amazing food and the service was so good I left a big fat tip.
The constant price-increases of Galileo’s was enough to deter me.. I don’t think I went back for the surcharge… I stand by my word, even though Galileo’s used to be one of my favourites..
Shame though. This place used to be good value for some great food. I imagine it being somewhat like a 3rd world country slowly finding its footing as a first world.. except that Galileo’s always been attached to a 5-star hotel. It’s Bilson’s for me 🙂
I hadn’t noticed they were increasing their prices, but all their random charges are appalling. Such a shame, because otherwise i reckon they’d be a fab restaurant
You are so popular with so many birthday celebrations. Shame about the restaurant, why don’t they just raise prices overall instead of adding surcharges everywhere?
Not so much popular as a foodaholic, I reckon 😛
I still woudln’t want the restaurant to raise their prices.. just to not be so greedy, grrr!