Gardens by Lotus

I was blown away by the serenity while being right in the city. Amazing gardens and food. Will definitely be back!

Good food and vibe but not worth the price for weekend yamcha tbh. It was more like course meal not like all you can eat. It was a good experience but wouldn’t go again for yamcha but for weekday lunch/dinner.

Good food, a bit pricy but worth it. Very pleased service and also satisfying atmosphere!

Overall it was an enjoyable experience with the serenity of the chinese gardens. The food was average, some good dishes (prawn dumplings) and others very disappointing (the roasted duck pancakes appeared to be days old and just reheated in microwave as it was very dry and chewy). The service was good and attentive.

Went for our work Christmas lunch and had a sensational time. Food was excellent, service was fantastic and the setting is amazing. Smack-bang in the middle of the Chinese Gardens you dine overlooking the ponds and next to a waterfall. Will definitely be back!

I was embarrassed to take clients to lunch here. I’m a fan of other Lotus but this was awful. Despite the nice setting in the gardens and the food being ok, we had some of the worst service I’ve experienced. The set menu was very limited and small. They gave us 2 plates that were smaller than a average lotus main, to share amongst 6! We ordered beers and a bottle of wine. Waitress dumped the wine on the table and no beers and just left. We asked where the beers were and she said, ‘we’ve run out so you can just have the wine’... oh ok thanks - Lotus can be great but they need to ensure the consistency across their brand, you never know what you’re going to get unfortunately.

great location for Yum Cha! Food ands service was great.

Although the food looked aesthetically pleasing my friend and I found the yumcha was pretty average in terms of taste and variety. There are definitely better yumcha place shut for the location and the included Chinese garden ticket, it was worth the price. The variety of food was also limited, lacking yum cha favourites like chicken feet and tripe. The views of the garden was pleasant though the service was a bit slow compared to other yumcha places and there were small portions brought out one by one for each table rather than a typical yumcha with push carts, the result was longer wait times and slow service times.

The bottomless yum cha is a must try. You won’t regret it.

Lovely experience highly recommended. Wish we could have picked which items on the menu we wanted and when. Everything came out so quickly that by the time you had some of the items they were cold. We weren’t offered any tea either which was sad and wished for the amount paid that you get a free drink. Nevertheless it was beautiful!

Service was very poor and food came out extremely slow. We waiting for our food for a long time.

While staffs are friendly services is not up to standard. Not very organise. Foods are ok but it takes forever for them to serve.

We sat and waited for 3 hours in total for every dish to be served. The waitress said they were double capacity and the kitchen was struggling to keep up with all the diners. We didn’t order extra dishes due to already being sat for 3 hours. Received the wrong drinks. Not worth $70. Would not recommend.

We got the best seat of the house for my hubby's birthday, which was really great. The selection was huge and service was very speedy. No waiting for food to arrive, that's for sure. It keeps coming.
We were so full by the end of round 1. We can't possible eat more.
Definitely a great experience that I would recommend due to the novelty of the peaceful and beautiful location, though the table next to us was a riotous group of teenage girls :(
Perhaps the only criticism is that it is way to expensive for what you get. We paid $140 for 2 people for our Sunday seating. The food was good but definitely not 'din tai fung' great.

Food is lovely and you get chances to reorder your favourite dishes and then you are allowed to walk around the gardens which is lovely!

Gardens by Lotus is a lovely place to dine, with serene beautiful setting, tables well spaced, excellent service. However, it is not proper yum cha, the food does not come round on trolleys and one simply has to take the dishes you are given. Some of the dumplings were nice, some very ordinary. I missed some of the more adventurous food one can get in a yum cha. The fixed price should have alerted me perhaps that there would be no choice, but it didn’t.
So, I think Gardens by Lotus should either introduce a proper yum cha, or just become a straight Chinese restaurant, nothing wrong with that. With that setting, and excellent staff, it could be a really good place for a weekend lunch.

Long story short: Lack of communication between staff and kitchen for our table so had to constantly remind them about the dishes we had and were still waiting on throughout. Arrived at 12.55 for our 1pm booking, left at 3.30ish (suppose to leave at 2.30) because we were waiting for our final dish to come out. The dishes we received - some were good, others were sitting under the lights for too long so was luke warm and dry. Such a shame as could’ve been so great for our anniversary meal.
Oh and to top it off there was recording/interviewing happening next to us part way through our meal and they got all of there food instantly

Was very disappointed with the entire experience. Was expecting all you can eat yum cha however we were allocated 1.5hrs for our seating time there but we ended up waiting for 3 hours to still be receiving dishes on the menu however by the end of it we still did not end up receiving everything on the menu. Was very disappointed with the pace of the delivery of each dish, was waiting up to 30 minutes at times for the next dish.
Overall very bad value for money as we didn’t even receive all the items on the menu let alone be able to reorder dishes. Portions were also very small and given that we already waited so long for the first servings of dishes, it would have been more beneficial if we went to a yum cha restaurant instead as our booking was quite pricey and we would have had a better experience there.
The tea was nice though.

One of the most authentic and delicious dim sums I’ve ever had since arriving in Sydney (kudos to the chefs!) Food came out at a steady pace and was all very tasteful, filling and substantial for the price; not to mention it’s truly bottomless meaning you can ask for seconds (only a few l items not reorder-able) so you really can’t go wrong!

The Gardens is a must-try purely for the value, taste & atmosphere, but in case you need more convincing: there’s also a waterfall feature you can sit near & the restaurant design is consistent with the rest of the Friendship Garden where it makes you forget you’re near the heart of a city centre!

We sat near the waterwall which was mostly calming, but because it was a corner table, we were ‘forgotten’ quite a bit once it got busier as our table kept running out of water 😭 It was also a bit strange that Garden guests kept walking through the rock wall would recommend implementing some signage so it’s made clearer for garden visitors & restaurant guests aren’t impacted. Music was also a bit to loud & modern which didn’t fit the traditional, tranquil atmosphere sadly :(

Staff was overall very nice, informative & helpful, but one other minor gripe I had was the presentation of some staff. I’m not normally judgemental on how people look (after all everyone’s entitled to present themselves however they wish to be comfortable with who they are!), but something I just couldn’t help but notice with one gentleman in particular was how unkempt his presentation was: his clothes were wrinkly & his facial hair was quite unshaven. Mind you he was still nice enough, but just thinking from a business perspective, wrinkles and scruffy hairs aren’t the most professional look >w<

All in all, we had a grade-A experience and can’t wait to return! Only deducted 1 star for very minor issues which are all easily resolvable~

Great service and delicious food but overall it’s a bit rush for 90 mins sitting

Had the bottomless yum cha. A little disappointed with the level of service provided by some staff members. Most of the waiters and waitresses were lovely and happy to provide us with doubling dishes despite not having all dishes come out yet. We noticed one waiter kept giving our calamari dish to another table hence why the main waitress (wearing terracotta shirt) was very rude and abrupt when we asked if we could get another serving of a dish. Did not allow us to provide an explanation, it was a simple “no” and walked away. Quite rude. It’s a shame as everything else experienced was great.

Good in total, but the pork and prawn in shui mai is still raw.

Most enjoyable. Loved the water dragons. Perhaps too many dumplings - variety please.

The set menu was really disappointed
It’s like frozen foods

I love the food, the place and the staffs so friendly. Shout out to Kurni, Head Chef, thank you for amazing food!!

Staff around the restaurant are very welcoming. They have kept a well-performed social distancing rule as the distance between tables are precisely measured and set apart. The variety of food are worth its value so much, both me and my friends are satisfied with the food and the customer services. After YumCha, walking around the Chinese Garden is also a must-have activity! Overall, highly recommended!

The place was amazing and service was great. Food was of high quality but on the smaller portions, particularly we were only given one bowl of rice between two people which was disappointing portion for a set menu. Ambience can get a little noisy when there are kids around (we went on school holidays) but otherwise great experience.

IVE BEEN HERE BEFORE AND LOVED IT!
THIS TIME WE CAME FOR OUR ANNIVERSARY AND IT WAS DREADFUL, FROM WHERE WE WERE SAT TO THE QUALITY OF FOOD, INCREDIBLY DISSAPOINTED...WE WILL NOT RETURN
!

Absolutley stunning. With our a doubt the best Yum Cha in Sydney.

Lovely setting, unfortunately the quality of the food was well below expectations from Lotus.

Beautiful food great staff

It is one time experience. Food is okay, i am very picky with asian food and i can say it is pretty standard food.

Simply The BEST! Ambience, Scenery, Service, Food etc The ONLY Lotus in the yum cha Pond