Rum Diaries, The

9.3 Highly Recommended

Ambience  10      Service  9      Value  9      Drinks  9     

This place was great. I had been wanting to go there for a while and wasn't disappointed. The service was great, friendly and professional. Excellent cocktails and the food fantastic, with the ambience adding to it all. We'll be back there for sure.

Apr 28, 2009 

6.8 Recommended

Ambience  6      Service  8      Value  6      Drinks  7     

Great ambience. Food is superb. Cocktail are to die for. The service is attentive and friendly, nothing too pretentious. I would highly recmomend The Rum Diaries to anyone wanting to go and have a real dining 'experience' where its about the service, food, drinks and ambience. The Chef even comes and ask how your dinner was!

Apr 12, 2009 

8.8 Highly Recommended

Ambience  9      Service  8      Value  9      Drinks  9     

I can't believe the comments so far have not been all that great. I've been wanting to go to the Rum Diaries for a while after reading a review in the paper and finally made it there with 3 friends on Sunday night. Booking was easy, table was ready when we arrived. Service friendly and we never had to wait long for anything.

Ambience great, a little noisy, but I loved the decor, it really added to the atmosphere of the whole place. It's a mish mash of old pieces of furniture and outside they even have an old lounge and old fashioned record players! I had one of the lovely rum cocktails and while not exactly cheap at $17.50, it was very good and about average what you pay for cocktails at the better places in Sydney.

The food was the best thing about this place. We had 7 dishes between the 4 of us plus dessert. There wasn't a single dish I'd even consider average and I've eaten at many places around the city as well as Europe. The taste and presentation of all dishes was superb! The total bill came to just under $200 which I thought was a bargain for what we'd had! Especially seeing it incuded a cocktail, a bottle of wine and dessert for 3!

The $24 for a tapas dish mentioned by the person below, is for a large dish, which it mentions in the menu. The prices for most other dishes ranged from about $7.50-$16.50. I had high expectations and I was not disappointed! I will certainly be back and will be bringing more friends along. There are several good restaurants around Sydney these days but I'm sure this will be one of my favourites!

Mar 31, 2009 

4 Below Average

Ambience  7      Service  3      Value  2      Drinks  4     

Ok, so having lived in Bondi Beach for a while now, there seems to be a trend of tapas bars that come and then eventually go, vanish without a trace. So having walked past The Rum Diaries on numerous occasions, seeing it packed to the rafters every night (literally), a couple of my friends and I decided to check it out.

So for me first impressions were quite good, nice ambience and atmosphere, small and cosy, sort of like you have turned up to a private function and are about to have dinner with a bunch of mates. Our waiter came and showed us to our table, or should I say window sill. Our table was literally the window sill at the front of the restaurant.

With a lounge pushed up behind us and a wooden bench seat to sit on, to say there was not much room to move is a real understatement, if there was an award for the most uncomfortable seat and table to have to eat at, that would have to win hands down.

It reminded me of the zoo really, being squashed into a cage with people looking through a window at you. So, the seating arrangements were not the best, but we thought we would soldier on as we were really excited by the drinks and food menu. Drinks. We ordered the punch, the punch was not available due to all the “vessels” being broken and the only one left was being used by another patron.

The waiter must have assumed that we were dummies by the confused expression on all three of our faces so he went on the explain that the “vessels” where the jugs the punch was served in. Just for the record we got what you meant by “vessels”, our confused expression was due to the fact that you run a bar that serves punch with only one punch jug. We settled for a bottle of white wine.

I don’t even know where to start with the food, we ordered the Red Pepper/ Pumpkin and Chia Seed: with roquette pesto and garlic and chilli rub, the Chilli and Lime Leaf Squid: with lemongrass sauce, the Moroccan Beef Kofti: with apricot and honey yoghurt, the Roasted Squash and Pumpkin Chips: with basil aioli dipping sauce and the Rum Diaries House Salad.

So the bread and oil rubs/pesto was good and everything was starting to look up, but things quickly came crumbling back down when we were served the squid. The squid was so tough and tasted as though it was a frozen seafood mix from your local supermarket (guys we have one of the best fish markets in the world at our doorstep, I would suggest in future you look at using it).

Two of us could not even chew it and ended up having to spit it out on our plates, really attractive in front of the passerby’s staring at us through the window. Needless to say we sent it back, along with the half chewed pieces on our plates. I can’t complain about the Kofti, it was really good, just don’t think you will get full on it, it comes in a really small portion. If you haven’t gathered yet, our food had to be staggered as our window sill was so small, it couldn’t fit all our plates, one of my friends actually had to eat her meal off her lap.

Anyway, we received our pumpkin and squash “chips”, now I use this term very lightly, can someone tell me when baked pieces pumpkin and squash started to be called “chips”? A good old fashioned chip to me is cut thinly and deep fried, do not expect that of the “chips” at The Rum Diaries.

After that we had enough, we did not wait around for the salad, we downed the rest of our wine, told the waiter we wanted our bill (minus the squid and salad) and then spent the next 20 minutes hobbling down the road, trying to get the pins and needles out of our butts from the “seat”.

I have never written a review on a restaurant before even ones I love, but if you’re thinking of dining at The Rum Diaries anytime soon, I say this, proceed with extreme caution. We will never be returning.

Mar 31, 2009 

5 Average

Ambience  6      Service  6      Value  2      Drinks  6     

Went to Rum Diaries with my girlfriend based on a number of reviews we had read in the local press. Arriving their the tables already became a problem; tiny, wobbly and me being 6ft plus barely fitted into the table which only just held 2 glasses of wine - That aside i was intrigued by the food - described as Tapas the first thing that struck me were the ridiculous prices of $24+ for one dish. As any regular diner knows Tapas is small and to be served on mass so $24 a dish will most likely end you up leaving and heading straight to Macca's to top up your stomach. Each dish was served more like a separate dish, not something share like tapas, the portions (although it is Tapas) were insanely small even for Tapas! If you want Tapas, go across the road to the flying squirrel where value for money has been understood along with the word tapas. This is a poor excuse for a high end restaurant. I wont be going back.

Mar 19, 2009 

4 Below Average

Ambience  3      Service  1      Value  5      Drinks  7     

The service was very poor. We had to ask for the dinner menu, which took 10 minutes for them to find. We also had to ask, twice, for the cocktail menu before we got it. Wait staff were negligent and seemed to care more about themselves than the diners. We were also short-changed $5 when we paid at the end of the meal.

Mar 02, 2009 

7.5 Recommended

Ambience  8      Service  9      Value  6      Drinks  7     

Had dinner and cocktails here on Friday night and had a great time. The restaurant looks cramped, but it actually works once you sit down. Our waitress was friendly, funny and extremely attentive and she co-ordinated our dinner and drinks seamlessly. The cocktails were good, and we were offered great advice on which ones would best suit our tastes.

The food was delicious and came out one meal at a time (even the vegetable dishes), which we found a bit odd, but it really worked and made for an enjoyable over all dining experience. The only downside would be that this is not the cheapest night out, but it was well worth it, if you want to avoid too much damage at bill time, go easy on the cocktails. I will definitely be back soon.

Feb 02, 2009 

3.3 Below Average

Ambience  5      Service  1      Value  2      Drinks  5     

The service at this place is snobby, pretentious and the staff appear more concerned with their own existence than actually serving customers. With so many great places in the eastern suburbs, there is no need to frequent a place such as this.

Dec 03, 2008 

7.3 Recommended

Ambience  8      Service  8      Value  7      Drinks  6     

Went there on a sunday night, no booking. Scored a table for two easily enough.
We started off with the cheese platter (yes, I realise its usually had at the end of a meal) thinking we would just chill and drink and nibble for a while before getting to the mail meal. Honestly, I could have stopped after the cheese platter! I mean it wasnt 'massive' but it was, perhaps, twice as large as I expected. The sweet bread (walnut/apricot?) was delicious, the cheese were ordinary but/and nice.

We asked a waiter if he could hold off on the rest of the order until we were done with the cheese platter but there seemed to be a communication failure between he and our regular waitress (who was new and incredibly attentive and obliging with us) as the barramundi came out and sat on the table for 30 minutes. Our waitress then came out and asked if we would like the rest of our meal.

Obviously Mr waiter hadn't informed her. After we clarified it with her it was smooth sailing. The food was rather good. The barramundi was superb, the beef kofti a little dry but beautifully spiced, the masala a little watery (but nicely presented and decent flavour) and the asian greens, well they were asian greens.
Other than needing to wait too long for the bill the service was great, although I would put that down to our specific waitress as the rest of the staff seemed to disappear for stretches and be generally distracted.

Saying all that, I'm critiquing the place for its faults (which were few and relatively painless). The whole experience there was lovely. The ambience is just right, warm, cosy, chilled, relaxed. Will definitely be back!

Dec 01, 2008 

4.5 Below Average

Ambience  6      Service  3      Value  4      Drinks  5     

A small pokey place which could be quite quaint but doesn't seem to know whether it's a bar or a restaurant, and ends up just being noisy and chaotic. Tapas is the go here, and certainly the seafood dishes were excellent, thai style chilli pil pil prawns were delicious, marinated squid was tender and fresh, fish cakes were interesting, smoked served with caper popcorn and fresh tomato sauce.

The accompanying bread was a little odd, brioche style sweet sponge bread which was orange in colour. A few more chunks of rustic crusty bread would have been appreciated. To follow we skipped the 'mains' and had some naked potatoes, served with fresh thyme and sea salt, with sour cream on the side, nice but could have been more crispy and moroccan lamb kofte, which were overpowered with cumin and not a lot else. Most courses varied from $10-20 with the 'mains' being a little more ~$26.

There is an impressive cocktail menu with an even more impressive array of rums, a favourite of mine. The cocktails were $17.50 each but didn't live up to the mark. There seemed to be about eight waiters who were all dressed in varying degrees of 'casual' i.e. jeans and t-shirt, so it was difficult to spot who were waiters and who were clientele.

Either way the service was poor, we felt neglected, there were lots of people running around not attending to anyone specifically, we had about four different waiters at our table, but no-one came to replenish our water (after being asked twice), and no-one came to ask if we wanted dessert or the bill. So we stood at the bar waiting for the bill, paid $111 and left.

Nov 28, 2008