Cafe Q Ultimo, Sydney

A medium sized contemporary styled cafe, well hidden in the inner courtyard of a large residential and office building. Indoor and outdoor seating.

User Reviews of Cafe Q, Ultimo

Displaying: 1 - 3 of 3 reviews

1 of 1 reader found the following review helpful

8.3 Highly Recommended

Food 9 Ambience 6 Service 9 Value 9

I've been here few times, and really enjoyed the food and coffee. Very friendly owner and great service. Hope to visit again in the near future. Great improvement since the new owners took over.

Feb 09, 2009

dforc
2

4.5 Below Average

Food 5 Ambience 4 Service 4 Value 5

Since the new owners took over a few weeks ago, the standards have slipped even further. The coffee is insipid: weak, sour/bitter, and not hot enough.

The wraps they have are passable, but the atmosphere has become even less inviting. Clearly, the "cool people" at DDB agency nearby have abandoned it.

May 20, 2008

bigdave
1

0 of 1 reader found the following review helpful

2.5 Not Recommended

Food 1 Ambience 4 Service 3 Value 2

I visited this Cafe Q ("Cafe Q" a remarkably common name for cafes, as it happens) with a friend today for the first and last time. The terribly terribly generic try-hard-cafe menu with all the terribly generic breakfast and lunch offerings and all the usual attempts to sound 'sophisticated' by referring to 'roma' tomatoes and 'cos' lettuce and "avocado guacamole" (that's a direct quote by the way - is there another kind of guacamole?) was completely uninspiring, and the first clear indication of things to come.

The second big indicator was the way the waiter behaved: standing oh-so-casual, on one leg and leaning against the planter box outside whilst he took our order, answering questions with "yeah", placing other people's dirty plates on ours whilst he attended to our needs, confusing orders and generally being completely unprofessionally average. Then they burned the coffee. Now I haven't been to the Barista School in Camperdown, but I think I know enough to know that it's not too hard to make a passable coffee (steps one and two are don't overheat and don't over extract).

The fish and chips that I ordered for my lunch met entirely with my expectations. The problem being, of course, that by this stage my expectations had hit rock bottom. The chips were, interestingly, cooked a lot like the coffee: badly. For too long, in oil that wasn't any where near hot enough - a technique that is pretty much guaranteed to produce fluffy chips soggy by the amount of oil they've absorbed. (While I'm on the chips, a word of advice: vast quantities of cheap (pardon the pun) chips do not compensate for a lazy and/or inept approach to their preparation.)

I can't complain about the fish - mostly because there wasn't any (well none of any significance anyway). In fairness I was served a thin sliver of fish, albeit encased in a thick and soggy (the same pot as the chips I expect) of hard yellowed egg-based batter.

Wrap the experience up with no condiments (not even salt, pepper or sugar) on the cheap rocking tables, and that's pretty much the worst lunch experience I've had in a long time. A steal at fifteen dollars fifty for the Egyptian-style fish (and chips) and two dollars eighty for the American-style coffee. My friend said she enjoyed her B.L.T., and always, her company was most enjoyable. I'll not be returning to this cafe however.

Feb 19, 2008