The Grounds of the City

poor services. push the customer service to leave even though we are still not finish the coffee yet.

Great atmospheric cafe-restaurant for breakfast in the CBD. Good choice of meals and fast, attentive service. I recommend booking to ensure you a table otherwise expect at least a 20min wait.

Breakfast at The Grounds in City was a buzzy experience. Great Manhattan style atmosphere and busy. Service excellent. Good very good and excellent direction of well thought dishes.
Booth type seating perfect fir catchup with friends. Will be back!!

Great ambiance, comfortable seats. Tasty and fresh food, not too heavy. Staff were quite helpful and charged my phone securely. Only drawback is there is no toilet inside and you have to go up an escalator to the Galeries food court which is not easy to find.

Good cocktails, lovely service. Didn't actually eat but the food looked and smelled amazing. Price was... sydney prices so 20 ish a cocktail. Worth it tho.

It was our anniversary so wanted a special breakfast. Unfortunately when we got it it was cold. We were so hungry we didn’t take it back we just ate a cold breakfast, disappointed.

We did not get the table that was requested. Instead we were placed right by the door. We could barely hear each other talking. Service was average. Bug tails were undercooked and so tiny. I come here often but this time we weren’t too happy. I am hoping next time will be better.

Food was amazing but it was a little too noisy to have a good conversation.

this space is beautiful, however it took them 45 mins to bring out food out. Not ideal for a breakfast meeting and the food is a little overpriced for what it is.

60s, scat, class, style, authentic city/country style food made with Total Love. The only thing missing is Swing dancing!

Great food and a lovely ambience. Somewhat spoiled by curt attitude of waitstaff. I understand the lunch rush is stressful and busy but that's no excuse for poor customer service.

I loved the food, it was fantastic, and the atmosphere and ambiance was perfect.

Very noisy, so difficult to have a conversation. Menus are in tiny print, so out with the magnifying glasses!
Staff, very pleasant. Tables very squashed in. Hard to slide over bench seats in non-slippery clothes! Might try somewhere else next time.

Cold coffee, cold and very average food, poor service. Saved only by the interior. Would not recommend.

I really like the Grounds so it is hard to say this but my smashed avocado this week was cold, had unripe green tomato chunks that were fridged and therefore tasteless and chalky. I've had great experiences there in the past but Monday's breakfast was very disappointing.

Service, ambiance, and everything else were top notch, as always. Food, this time around? a real downer.

Steaks is really fantastic and pastas is also great

My favourite restaurant. Adorable decor, gorgeous lighting, the service staff are all awesome and the ploughman's vege 'salad' is the best pile of food in the city. It's not a salad lol - it's a whole plate of goodies. Get it in your face.

The service of the mgt was totally poor. We left a note when reserving the table to keep 3 pieces of hazelnut cake. But they didn't. The place was overly crowded, the noise level was so high. We couldn't hear each other talking. I was highly disappointed this time.

Great fun vibe, nice food and helpful service. Gf options.

Not sure if this is the norm, but the restaurant was operating like an American restaurant whereby waiters/waitresses are responsible for certain tables only. You have to look for your specific waitress otherwise you get ignored. Even then, the service was slow and we were forgotten. Ambience was good, would still recommend to friends but would set expectation low for service quality. Food was good, except the pappardelle main.

My meal was bland. Vegetable undercooked- inedible Chicken was minuscule and looked rare on the pink plate. Overpriced!

Gorgeous though noisy ambience. Great service and beautiful food. Quirky and delightful.

Sponge cake was AMAZING. Attentive service. Noise level was LOUD. Good food.

Wer had a very lovely time - and were looked after very well.
Harry a super chap.
Anthea

been here many times and that is testament to their consistency. We had the T Bone medium and the Wagyu medium rare, perfectly cooked, onions particularly sweet which we loved, the Mozarella Salad - yes we ate the flower. They allowed us to sit early, staff was wonderful on reception, ordering and serving. the ambience is the best in the city, it is both friendly and intimate, the food outstanding. would definitely recommend and will definitely come back. No bathrooms within the premises, will need to use the lavatory near the Gym on the first floor. they have a seasonal menu and an abundant variety of gluten free and vegetarian options. Juice of the day was definitely the highlight and an overall wonderful experience. thank you team and everyone for making it extra special for us!

Great service. Our main was overcooked and dry so the kitchen offered us a cake to share as compensation.

It is a decadent experience to have time at The Grounds in the City. We enjoyed a beautiful High Tea for a birthday celebration and were treated so well! The sparkling was beautiful, staff were attentive, and the atmosphere is unique. The birthday girl was sung to and treated to her own special cake, and as we had a booking there was no waiting in line. Just a few suggestions - that staff continually refill water glasses, and that the cream given for the scones be more a more generous quantity. You can’t have scones, jam and cream without a decent serving of thick cream! Thank you for our experience. We will be back!

Wonderful location and setting, sad that the hostess never once spoke directly to us making eye contact. The waiter was efficient and seemed genuinely engaged with customers.

The food was good not spectacular.....

Amazing ambiance. Great food. Loved the experience. Food is what you would expect - coffee is on par with Melbourne coffee. Thoroughly enjoyed everything.

Need to have more vegetarian options. Only 2 and 1 pasta was available . Bit latger spread could help. Thanks

Always consistent food is delicious service on point!

We had to line up to get served to alert someone about our reservation because another customer was making a booking for a later date. There should have been a second person attending to other customers with an existing booking given that was a peak time during Thurs lunch.

My guest and I ordered the bouillabaisse but it was cold and the bread that came with it soggy. The prawns were also not very fresh and I couldn’t peel the shell off easily. We also ordered fries which came with a blob of Parmesan stock to them instead of evenly spread across the top of the fries (which is how I think they were supposed to be served and) so we basically had to discard that whole chunk as it was all stuck together and ate the remainder.

Overall I thought it was very overrated and overpriced and won’t be going back.

Good coffee, great smashed avocado, below average potato hash - more like potato mash. No crisp to it at all. Below average service speed.

Great food, service, love the booths! Already booked to go again next week :)

Would only recommend for tea/coffee + cake. Lunch was not great and overrpriced

Great for breakfast and lunch

Our waiters were amazing guys and made my daughter feel so special on her 12th Birthday. We had to wait 15 minutes for our table that is the only negative but do understand you were busy.

Cocktails were nice and the waiter was very friendly and attentive.

A lovely lunch. Service was wonderful and the food was lovely but could have done with a whole slice of bread rather than half. My deconstructed mocha wasn’t really very hot but the flavour was lovely.

Unfortunately, we were seated late and missed the breakfast menu which was the purpose of our visit. Music was very loud and hard to hear even diagonally across from you! Could have been more vegetarian main options.