Summit Restaurant

I chose The Summit as my 2nd Sydney Festival Fast Festival Feasts, mainly because it's the closest place in between my new work building. Plus, I'd been here in late 2005 and while it wasn't the best food I've had, it was pretty good, so was looking forward to another great experience like at Glass Brasserie earlier. Well, the Summit definitely didn't measure up.

Food

We were offered drinks and our wines were delivered. They offered a choice of a red or white Preece, no idea what grape as they didn't specify, or a Crown Lager. I went for the white this time since we were having fish. I thought the white was pretty unspectacular, but not bad in any way, just not very memorable.

We ordered a serve of the Sonoma 5 hour sourdough loaf, three antipasto dips - warm ligurian and kalamata olives with roasted chilli artichoke paste, hand rolled sea salt grissini ($8). The Sonoma delivered but as regular readers will know, is not my favourite bread. I tried the dips, which were swimming in oil. They were passable but nothing to write home about. I know how expensive Sonomas are so at least this was not a rip off.

The mains were Paella spiced ocean trout with caramelised tomato tart and candied garlic eggplant ($25). The waiter came around with the dreaded pepper mill which I politely declined. The ocean trout was very salty, and slightly overcooked. However, I really liked the tomato tart. The tomato had been shrunk so that it was very sweet. The "candied" eggplant on the other hand, wasn't that sweet. Overall, the food was...average for the setting.

Rating - 6.5

Atmosphere

For those not in the know, this is a revolving restaurant, set on the 47th floor of Australia Square. In our 1.5 hrs there, we were through nearly one rotation. We saw the harbour bridge, opera house and all other famous landmarks around the harbour. It was a glorious day, and we could see very far.

The decor fitted the setting, very high class, a bit bland, but nothing to offend, and nothing too out there. They do bill themselves as a tourist attraction so I guess they have to be conservative.

Rating - 2.5

Service

For a restaurant that was almost empty, I found the service a bit slow. They asked for drinks order, but didn't take our food order for about 20 minutes after that. However, once we ordered, the meal arrived in good time. It was ok because we were chatting, but if we wanted to get out of there quickly it wouldn't be a good choice.

The waiter was doing a bit of hard selling, pushing first the mineral water, then the bread, then vegetables and dessert on us. I didn't like that. The waiter wasn't so polite and while efficient, was worst than I expect for the prices they charge at this place.

Rating - 3

C-factor

Any place that charge $9.80 for a bottle of water is a rip-off, no matter how beautiful the setting. They forgot to charge our bread so at least that compensated for it. In terms of the "C", I guess it has date potential, definitely a good show-off place. But since I'm a foodie, I won't be returning.

Rating - 0.5

Brownie Points - 12.5

Info

Level 47, Australia Square
264 George Street,
Sydney
NSW 2000
Phone (02) 9247 9777
Website