Hazelhurst Gallery Cafe

7 Recommended

Food  7     

Just rating the food: Good Modern Australian.

Was passing through on the way south. Stopped for lunch. Had the barramundi and king prawn fish cakes with salad, fresh and delicious. A bit pricey, although the servings are generous. Good food, but nothing adventurous here. Good place for lunch if you are not in a hurry, take your time and enjoy the art gallery and the garden surroundings.

Jul 09, 2011 

4 Below Average

Food  6      Ambience  6      Service  1      Value  3     

One gets the feeling that management doesn't know what it's doing. Bad service is never a good idea.

Jan 28, 2011 

5.8 Average

Food  6      Ambience  8      Service  4      Value  5     

If you can get a spot outside looking onto the garden its lovely. The food was ok but nothing special and unfortunately the few times I have been there the service has never been great. You have to work hard to get anyone to notice you. Good spot with kids though as they can run around on the grass.

Dec 29, 2010 

6.3 Average

Food  6      Ambience  9      Service  5      Value  5     

The setting is really lovely in the gardens of the Hazelhurst Gallery so I still like going here for an afternoon tea with a girlfriend. The cakes can be very good but I probably wouldn't order any of the meals off the menu again. They're not bad but not great for the price either. Also service tends to be a bit slow and you have to be proactive to get the attention of the staff.

Jul 14, 2010 

5 Average

Food  5      Ambience  7      Service  3      Value  5     

Pretty lackluster service and a limited menu, too. Food-wise, this place seems to place emphasis on quantity over quality.

Jun 29, 2010 

3.5 Below Average

Food  3      Ambience  7      Service  1      Value  3     

I find it hard to believe just how bad the service was at Hazelhurst on this visit. We were totally ignored for about 45 minutes until we asked for our order to be taken. Even then we had to wait, as it seemed the staff were trying to agree on who had to perform this onerous task. A request to change tables was denied even though the cooler table was empty the entire time we were there. Our order was obviously lost, and when the food finally came the hot dishes were lukewarm and mediocre. Coffee was a long wait, the staff were defensive and we would not return.

Feb 25, 2010 

3 Below Average

Food  5      Ambience  3      Service  2      Value  2     

What a shame. This used to be the best place to eat in the Shire, food was superb. Sadly a shadow of it's former self, food is only mediocre, service poor.

Dec 21, 2009 

6.8 Recommended

Food  9      Ambience  9      Service  4      Value  5     

Took forever to get any service and then when going to pay for the scones, the computer system had them wrongly priced and staff were overheard talking about trying to get away with it, lucky we know how much they were on the menu. Dodgy! The scones, however, were lovely.

Dec 01, 2009 

2 Not Recommended

Food  3      Ambience  1      Service  1      Value  3     

Hazelhurst “Cafeteria” is owned by the Sutherland Shire Council and the way that it is run is a reflection of the fact.

Up until Mid 2009 my wife and I visited Hazelhurst often to have coffee and to say hello to a person who worked as a Barista there. So my review on Hazelhurst comes from two years of personal observation which I can now report because that person has now left Hazelhurst.

We would often stop in to visit, have a cup of coffee and like everyone likes to do, sit back and watch other people. Mind you we would only order coffee if that certain person were on the coffee machine because the fact is that he was the only one who could make a decent cup of coffee, having had extensive experience as a Barista both here and overseas.

The staff in the other parts of the Hazelhurst gallery would do the same, waiting until he was making the coffee before ordering. It was once said to him by the senior staff ‘don’t make the coffee so good it makes the other staff look bad when they make it” I tell no lies.

I have read all the reviews here about Hazelhurst and I have to agree with the complainants. Over the two years that my wife and I visited Hazelhurst we observed very poor service, wait staff with an attitude of impatience and complacency. There were always tables with leftovers long after the diners had left and times of poor hygiene, like the reviewer below I also saw hair hanging in food and served anyway.

One day against the advice of my friend the barista I made the mistake of ordering a piece of cake to have with my coffee and I swear it was so stale that I left it and I’m a person who will never leave cake, my friend said that the cake was old. From then on I played it safe and had just coffee. I watched frustrated diners making comments amongst themselves about how long it was taking for their food to be prepared and others waving their hands in the air desperately hoping to catch the attention of a waitress to place an order after being seated and ignored for what seemed to be an eternity.

I watched people being served coffee that was cold by the time it was delivered to the table because of the length of time that it stood in front of the coffee machine waiting for one of the waitresses to deliver it. My friend constantly reminded the wait staff to deliver the coffee as soon as it was made knowing that it would be cold by the time it was delivered but it made no difference it was always delivered cold which he always feared would mistakenly be a reflection upon his skills as a barista.

Nov 18, 2009 

6.3 Average

Food  5      Ambience  9      Service  8      Value  3     

Friendly service, beautiful surrounds and the shade always works well for this joint, however, the menu is limited, and quite pricey ($13 for just scrambled eggs on toast), meaning that we'll only ever return if invited by someone else on their request. We ordered the breakfast bruschetta, but were turned off by the copious amount of onions.

Nov 06, 2009