Avido Restaurant & Wine Garden Paddington, Sydney

User Reviews of Avido Restaurant & Wine Garden, Paddington

Displaying: 1 - 10 of 40 reviews

9 Highly Recommended

Food 8 Ambience 10 Service 9 Value 9

I've been back to Avido several times and it never fails to impress. The service is fantastic and the food sensational(try the pork!) but the best part is the atmosphere. With the mix of the cool wall decor and rope ceiling display inside and then the relaxed wine garden out the back(complete with grape vine) you can have a wonderful dinner for two or a relaxed Sunday lunch with a few friends. With spring warming things up I cant wait to get back there for lunch out the back.

Sep 19, 2011

Greg_Boyle
1

9.5 Highly Recommended

Food 10 Ambience 10 Service 10 Value 8

The food here was excellent. We started off with a Caprese Salad and Seared Duck Rillettes with Blood Orange Jelly and Sourdough Crisps. The salad was very fresh, with a nice drizzle of balsamic and loads of lovely tomatoes and nice big chunks of mozzarella. The duck on the other hand was a little too salty in my opinion, but when paired with the blood orange jelly was not too bad.

Far better was the 300g grain-fed steak! It was presented nicely on a wooden board, already sliced up, and in all honesty this was one of the best cooked steaks I've had in Sydney. The hand cut chips were fantastic, the salad again delightfully fresh but the real winner on the plate somehow was the sauce! Perfect. Not too salty, not remotely sweet (like those horrible sludge pastes that you get out of the tube), and robust enough to take its place proudly next to that magnificent hunk of meat in front of me.

The steak, I mean. Just perfect. A match made in food heaven. My dining partner ordered the pork belly and this too was exquisite: tender, fall-apart-in-your mouth pieces of pork belly, cradled by mouth-watering slivers of fat and capped off with crisp crackling. Now granted, I've had better crackling elsewhere, but the pork itself, impeccable.

And last but certainly not least, the dessert: Honey Parfait with Cherry Compote atop Pistachio Biscotti and capped off with a devilishly dark chocolate swirl. This dish changed my life. I dreamed about it last night. I feel happier, calmer, more content, having tried it. It was in a word: phenomenal. The first bite opened a portal to Zen. The second brought me soaring through the skies, passing by silver-lined clouds, with rainbows exploding all around me in a euphoric symphony of colour, sights and sounds.

More specifically, the parfait was not too sweet, the cherries were plump and juicy and oh-so-perfectly tart yet sweet, the biscotti was crisp and perfect for soaking up all that creamy glory oozing out from the parfait, melting gently in the heat of my open-mouthed desire and melding with the juices of the cherries.

I love my desserts like nothing else and this made me just so darn Happy.

Just a quick note to finish, the decor is great. Quirky, slick and charming. The waiters were highly attentive and very professional. This is a real diamond of a place, so come one come all, even if it's just for the honey parfait.

Aug 31, 2011

snowska
9

9 Highly Recommended

Food 8 Ambience 10 Service 10 Value 8

It was lovely place to dine and service was warm and friendly. Salad was a bit bland but mains were really good. I had their fish of the day, it was tender and full of flavour. Dessert we had flourless chocolate cake, nothing exciting but combined with the wine, ambience, it was perfect finish to our evening.

Aug 30, 2011

Jensu
7

8.8 Highly Recommended

Food 9 Ambience 8 Service 9 Value 9

We dined at Avido the other night and found the service to be really attentive and friendly. We were greeted at the door with a smile and shown to our table. The restaurant was quite busy. Had the stuffed zucchini flowers and salt cod fritters to start with, then I had the pork belly and my partner had the snow crab & prawn risotto on recommendation. Both were excellent. Flourless chocolate cake to finish was perfect. Highly recommend and will be telling all our friends to try this little hidden treasure.

Aug 09, 2011

WHJames
1

8.8 Highly Recommended

Food 9 Ambience 8 Service 10 Value 8

I had a fantastic risotto at Avido! Service was friendly and professional and the food was delicious. Great neighbourhood restaurant. I'll be back again.

Aug 09, 2011

Lizzy Bay
1

0 of 5 readers found the following review helpful

2 Not Recommended

Service 2

I have been here twice. The first time I had a lovely lunch with a girlfriend the food was fresh and beautifuly cooked and the waiter was attentive and very polite. I decided to take a second friend with me on a Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately she arrived with her Chihuahua in a dog bag. I thought I would pop in and ask if they would let us sit outside but before we could even finish the question (we only popped our heads in the front doort) the waiter shouted "absolutely not!".

Now I completely understand where he was coming from regarding the dog but a polite "I'm sorry we can't allow dogs in here" would have suffficed. We walked up to Wine Library who sat us on the courtyard next to another group with a dog, brought out a water bowl for the mutt and were incredibly hospitable. Will never go back to Avido just because they were so rude when there was no reason to be. A polite no would have meant I would have come back another time and been happily on my way. You treat people like crap and they won't be back again.

Aug 09, 2011

engage
4

1 of 1 reader found the following review helpful

9.8 Highly Recommended

Food 10 Ambience 9 Service 10 Value 10

My wife and I became aware of this restaurant through a deal offered on Scoopon. The offer was an entree and main course for 2, a shared dessert and a bottle of wine, a total of $59. For entree we had the fried eggplant and the chicken liver parfait which were served on wooden boards. The parfait and its accompaniments were masterfully presented and so plentiful that it is adequate to share.

For the main we both had the 300-day grain fed Rangers Valley skirt steak, hand cut chips, watercress, parmesan & horseradish which we ordered medium rare and it too was served on a wooden board and nicely presented. It was perfectly cooked and served sliced up with the outside char-grilled – very tasty indeed. For shared dessert we had the flourless chocolate cake which was very much out of this world – this was also sufficient for 2.

All the food was plentiful and absolutely delicious. The service was excellent, the hosts friendly and very accommodating in that they (unlike some others) allowed us to substitute soft drink and coffee in lieu of the bottle of wine. The deal was advertised as “not one bad review” - we now know why.

We went on a Tuesday night at 7. There was only one other couple there which was disappointing to see and must have been disheartening to the proprietors – the weather however was miserable with torrential rain and parking in Oxford St in the vicinity of the restaurant is currently at a premium because of road works.

The deal was of exceptional value and was up with the very best of the many we have experienced to date. We will be returning there and recommending it to colleagues.

Jul 29, 2011

jasfof
5

1 of 1 reader found the following review helpful

8.8 Highly Recommended

Food 9 Ambience 8 Service 9 Value 9

Had a fabulous dinner - we shared the cheese platter for an entree which was delicious (just a couple of extra Lavosh biscuits would have been excellent!) and we enjoyed the fish and the steak as mains. Definitely would return and recommend. Excellent attentive service.

Jul 10, 2011