Felix Bistro & Bar

8.5 Highly Recommended

Food  8      Ambience  9      Service  9      Value  8     

Felix Bistro and Bar is a lovely French brasserie that immediately invokes a Parisian feeling. From the ceiling to the white tiled floor, even the immaculately dressed waiters, nothing is overdone or tacky but elegant, aesthetically pleasing. The dimly-lit, relaxed atmosphere and cheery, French-accented (I do love European-accented English!) staff made us feel at home.

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Mar 29, 2013 

10 Highly Recommended

Food  10      Ambience  10      Service  10      Value  10     

Menu is excellent, as is the food, service and atmosphere. Great bang for your buck too compared with its wanky fine dining peers.

Mar 22, 2013 

9.5 Highly Recommended

Food  10      Ambience  9      Service  10      Value  9     

If you think it's worth paying a little bit more for great food and great service then this place is excellent value. My only criticism would be that some of the customers aren't quite up to standard. Some of them looked like they'd have fit in better at McDonalds.

Jan 25, 2013 

9 Highly Recommended

Food  9      Ambience  9      Service  10      Value  8     

Dined at Felix on a Friday, early January with my partner and visiting parents; this was my third time dining at Felix (over the course of ~ 4 years).

Firstly, I did not have a booking, and we went for dinner around 7.15; lucky, because if we were any later, I imagine we would not have got a table (or would have had to wait a while). But they were able to accommodate us without fuss. (I suspect other times of the year it is more difficult to just walk in at that time.)

Our waiter (I regret not getting his name) deserves accolades. He was superb throughout the evening - explaining the specials, making recommendations, was fully attentive (it's the little things like always remembering who ordered what when bringing it to the table, without having to ask), and made for a good experience.

The food was equally good. Various people on our table had the fish (mulloway, on a bed of peas and bacon; was great), the prawn cocktail with salad (equally good, and quite intricate), the gruyère soufflé (not my meal or pick, but it was seriously superb and would make me want to go back alone), and some other seafood meal.

We had a mixture of desserts (I won't go into detail), which, while unnecessary, were equally good and not to be missed.

All in all, a fantastic meal and lovely evening; this place could easily become my go-to restaurant - it's consistently good and enjoyable.

Jan 16, 2013 

8 Recommended

Food  8      Ambience  6      Service  8      Value  10     

I'm going to try and keep this pointed and crisp. I came for the hype, stayed for the cuisine, and will return for the value.

Unfortunately we only booked that week and got one of the final spaces for the night and couldn't really experience everything the place had to offer, with that it still registered above average.

I felt like I had stolen after receiving the bill. For the evening I experienced I felt inclined to hand over a tip half of that of the bill. Our waiters only reply was to ask us to return, so we could do it all over again.

au plaisir de vous revoir

Jan 15, 2013 

6.3 Average

Food  6      Ambience  7      Service  6      Value  6     

We come to this place once a month after work meeting with the work colleagues.
Quite handy being close to work, enjoy the atmosphere but the food quality is average and the drinks are quite pricey. Good location though.

Dec 27, 2012 

7.5 Recommended

Food  7      Ambience  9      Service  8      Value  6     

Nice fit out, more French Brasserie feel than Bistro. Good service for our large group once we were able to grab the staff members attention.

Winelist is extensive with many top options by the glass, although the mark-up is very high, even for the premium end. Our three course banquet for $80 was reasonable value, although let down by the dry roast duck. The other plates were better. Oysters were good, the steak and frites was excellent.

Dec 09, 2012 

6.5 Recommended

Food  8      Ambience  7      Service  6      Value  5     

I ate here in a big group, having never been into the Ivy complex before. The fitout of the restaurant and bar is beautiful, it's been very well done, like an old style french bistro, all tiles, brass and glass. The only downside of this is that it was very loud, I found it hard to hear the people across the table talking.

We were forced to have the set menu, and while the fixed price menu on the web is $55, due to being in a group we were charged $80pp, plus a 10% compulsory service charge. I'm not a fan of enforced gratuities, they're making an absolute killing from our group (over $2,000), we should be free to decide how much we want to pay in response to their service and quality. One positive was that they only charged us for the number of people we had, not the number of people we had booked for (we were one short).

In terms of quality, I thought the food was wonderful. I had the pate, the steak and frites, and the profiteroles. The pate was superb, the steak very tender, I thought the profiteroles were the weakest of the 3, being more ice cream than profiterole and with an average choc sauce, but it was all good. Opinion seemed to be that the food was great around the table.

The wine list is very lengthy and priced quite high. I thought the wines were often a bit lacking for the price, although we had a couple of good bottles. The 2007 Clover Hill sparking was a highlight.

Service was a bit inconsistent, we seemed to be served by numerous different people. The staff were uncertain about the price of the menu we were having which was not written on the menu. We asked that the dessert be served after a 20 min break after mains, and they were served after closer to 45 minutes which stretched the meal out from 6.30pm to after 10pm. The table service was ok, just not very personal, and things like water were left for an hour without top-up at times.

I think I'd return due to the food, perhaps, for the advertised fixed price menu in a small group. However, I'm not sure I'd return in a group at $80pp.

Dec 07, 2012 

6.3 Average

Food  8      Ambience  7      Service  4      Value  6     

We've been twice in the last 2 weeks! The first visit was great, great food, good service and atmosphere. However, the second visit, only a week later, showed us that these guys can't maintain quality for even a week. It was very hard to get the waiters attention and basically the service was poor. Even on the first visit staff didn't know the menu and had to refer to other staff. I must say that the lamb pie is terrific!

Nov 13, 2012 

6.8 Recommended

Food  6      Ambience  8      Service  7      Value  6     

The bar area is beautiful and, in fact, the fit out is superb. Oysters and cocktails were great, however, the main meals were quite dull. My partner's steak was terrible ($38) rubbery and not at all like the great steaks I have had in Paris or French style here (Moncur does a great one), two of us had fried skate wing on barely cooked fennel. It was over salted (and I love my salt!) and way too buttery.

Also, for a place crawling with staff, it was bordering on humorous to order more wine "excuse, excuse, excuse me, oh, excuse, could we get more wine ..." As someone who travels to Paris every year, sometimes the wait staff are unfriendly, but maybe its because they're running their butts off with 1 person covering two floors and doing it well. The acoustics seemingly weren't considered in this expensive fit out either. And the toilets look like they're from a suburban food court - a reminder that you're in a trussed up lane way in the bowels of Sydney laced with some heavy duty curtainry. Looking forward to going back to the bar.

Oct 19, 2012