Stacks Taverna & Bar

7 Recommended

Food  8      Drinks  7      Ambience  7      Service  6      Value  7     

Our party of 14 dined at Stacks while Braza had to cancel our booking last night (while we have arrived at the door) due to fire issues.

We were pleasantly surprised with the quality of the food this place has on offer. Just to mention a couple of highlight dishes:

Quite a number of us ordered the Pork Belly, wow, how nicely was that dish done. I have dine in other hated restaurants where I have been given a Pork Belly piece with 95% fat not to mentioned about the missing crackling skin. The skin was crackling and the Pork Belly was of the right proportion of meat and fat. Well Done.

Others had tried the steak and guess what…thumbs up as well and this is the general feedback we have received throughout the table. The thing that you have to note though is that if you want them to cook for you, you have to pay an extra 5.00 for the service.

The Fish main was mediocre.

The kids ordered burgers and fish and chips but they were just kids meal and worth no special mentioning. Service was ok but I wouldn’t say it was exceptional.

May 09, 2012 

1 Not Recommended

Food  1      Drinks  1      Ambience  1      Service  1      Value  1     

Shambolic... Paid 10.50 for a glass for a bottle of water... Ouch... Ordered the steak and chips... very average as I asked for Med and got rare steak. Also had to pay the hidden cost of 3 dollars for the running sauce...

Will never go back!

Feb 29, 2012 

7.2 Recommended

Food  7      Drinks  8      Ambience  8      Service  7      Value  6     

I was really excited to try the new Darling Quarter area and visit Stacks Taverna especially.

Booked in Fri lunch for Fri evening, did not get a table where I requested but understand as it was so busy! Which made for a good atmosphere but the menu was limited, much more than I expected and not very good value, underwhelming for what you didn't get.

Come down to DQ and check it out, great new pocket of the southern end of the city. Maybe just have drinks and bar snacks at Stacks, however...

Feb 20, 2012 

9.4 Highly Recommended

Food  10      Drinks  10      Ambience  9      Service  8      Value  10     

Great lunch special Steak and chips or salad for $12. Steak was perfect. Sauce was divine. Stacks house wine was they delightful. Mum and I had a lovely lunch with my 16mth year old. Friendly staff. Thank you.

Feb 09, 2012 

2.2 Not Recommended

Food  1      Drinks  3      Ambience  3      Service  2      Value  2     

I ordered a medium steak and it arrived almost raw. Staff were attentive initially but when it came to getting the bill, it was like getting blood out of a stone. We were ignored completely. Won't bother going here again.

Feb 09, 2012 

4 Below Average

Food  5      Drinks  6      Ambience  6      Service  1      Value  2     

Me and a group of friends had a terrible dining experience ever here.

I had a meal once there. Although the service was a bit slow, but the environment and atmosphere were good. That led to my second visit with a group of friends. At the very beginning (the first 30 minutes), the service was good. After that, the service went downhill faster than a free falling object. We have asked for 2 jugs of water from 3 different staff, not even a single glass of water shown up until we made a comment about the delay (this was after 40 minutes of the first request).

Then, our table decided to add more orders, few staff walked past us and totally ignored our callings. After a while, we were fed up with the terrible service and decided to ask for the bill and head to somewhere else.

Another 30 minutes had passed after we have requested for the bill, I was furious by then. I physically walked up to a waitress and told her that the waiting time is getting ridiculous. Finally, the bill arrived and one of my friends felt the need to let the senior staff know about the situation.

A 'supervisor' came and just simply said 'I'm sorry but there's nothing I could do.' When my friend stressed on the fact that she simply wants to pass on her point of view and hope that it can be passed onto the staff. The 'supervisor' insisted again, 'I'm sorry and it was all due to misunderstandings. I'm sorry again, is this ok?'.

At this point, what else can be said? Where were the misunderstandings? The staff did not understand '2 jugs of water'? or 'could we have the bill'? The most annoying thing is when we made a comment/complaint, the 'supervisor' was not really listening. This can explain the poor, extremely poor service since even the 'supervisor' who suppose to manage and provide an example for staff behaves that way.

Will never ever return again.

Feb 01, 2012 

5.6 Average

Food  6      Drinks  3      Ambience  8      Service  6      Value  5     

I had a great meal here in their first week of opening. The tapas were top notch. Since then, their tapas have decreased in size and quality. I recently went here in a group of 4 and all of our steaks were low quality cuts of meat. Mine was well cooked (though tasteless), but my other guests' steaks were underdone. The 1 litre jugs of cocktails were poorly mixed and diluted. The sangria and mighty mojito we had were terrible. I hope this restaurant can lift their game, as they have a great location and setup and their service staff do seem to try.

Jan 22, 2012 

4.4 Below Average

Food  4      Drinks  3      Ambience  7      Service  6      Value  2     

Funky bar/ restaurant at Darling Quarter. The early evening entertainment was excellent, we saw two musicians singing their hearts out to classic songs. After about a 30-min wait, our meals arrived. I ordered the $50 3-course meal, and got disappointed. That deal is a rip-off. Entree was a pizza shared with everyone in our party (I had a slice that was probably worth at most $3).

Dessert was four small scoops of chocolate and vanilla ice cream and my main was just slightly better, a medium-rare steak with watery red wine jus. The meat was tender so I'll give the place points for that. Drinks were expensive, $66 for 3 shots of whisky. At least the staff seemed attentive and brought around jugs of water when required.

Jan 14, 2012 

7.6 Recommended

Food  6      Drinks  10      Ambience  10      Service  6      Value  6     

Drinks are always good. Not shy on the alcohol either. Food. I usually order a pizza or the steak with salad at lunch.

The steak no matter what price is always a hit and miss, either way overlooked or undercooked. Also sometimes extremely hard to chew. Cannot get gravy with this, only a $3 watery "red wine" jus, which tastes terrible. They seem to think Dijon mustard is hot English here too.

Service is usually attentive when you ask for it. I found it hard to find waitstaff who would look at anyone for you to grab their attention. Any other dish than the above mentioned is usually bland, especially the chicken. It never comes out at the same time. However, they never get the pizza wrong or late.

Now I'm not sure of the rules but they Choose to split bills somedays and then other days rudely tell us, that they don't. When they split bills I found only one waitress knew how and actually whinged about it. It's not hard to assign 4 identical meals and identical drinks to 4 people.

Love the location, and the lights that are on outside at night. They made a good choice here.

Jan 09, 2012 

8 Recommended

Food  9      Drinks  8      Ambience  8      Service  7      Value  8     

My colleagues and I dined at Stacks last week for our Xmas dinner. We were thoroughly impressed with the selections on the menu. I chose the pork belly and was not disappointed. We chose a number of small plates to share on arrival with our drinks and enjoyed every mouthful and the apple crumble pizza for dessert was a big hit.

The staff were attentive and I love the atmosphere the restaurant provided. We will be back to try the cook your own grill one weekend! What a great addition Darling Quarter is to the Darling Harbour area.

Dec 21, 2011