Sydney AMP Tower food?
 

Have read there are two restaurants atop the Tower. Gather the view is great; is the food any good? Prices?

Hi,SnRSeattle,
As you quite rightly said the views are fantastic.I have only had a snack and a beer up there and the price was slightly higher than normal.
Anyway check out this site it may help to answer your question.

http://www.sydney-tower-restaurant.com/index.htm


Have fun

Muck

Hi, SnRSeattle!

I guess that when you have a view like that, and you know, therefore, that you won't have any trouble attracting a clientele, you don't try very hard. I haven't eaten there, so I am only going by second-hand information (most of it gleaned from this forum), but virtually every report I have read says the food is just average or a little below that. Without exception, everyone says (as did Mucky, above) that it's overpriced.... in fact, compared to some comments on this forum, Mucky's showed commendable restraint when commenting on this aspect. Maybe some of these comments still exist on the forum, so a search above may prove enlightening.

The food is just average!

You wouldn't go there for the food.
If you want elevated food with elevated views, the only place to go in Sydney is Level 41. Guess what, the food's magnificent (usually), but the prices are "elevated" (read bloody expensive)

Can I suggest a nice place for a drink, late afternoon....try the Horizons Bar in the ANA Hotel, down at the Rocks.
The walls are glass from ceiling to floor, and the views go across the city & harbour. Very popular bar, so get there early. I'm not sure if the hotel is still known as the ANA, but I think its in Gloucester Street, a street that runs parrallel with George Street, down towards the Quay area.

The AMP Tower a la carte restaurant on level 1 is preferable to the self-serve buffet on level 2. I have lunched in both, but never had an evening meal. Prices are reasonable, as is the fare, but nothing to get excited about. If you are looking for views, Tropo has hit the nail on the head. The ANA Hotel has been rebadged as the Shangri-La, but the Horizon Bar with its magnificent outlook remains. The hotel is on Cumberland Street, two up from George.

S&R, I make it a rule never to eat in a place that sells itself on its view, or on the fact that it revolves, floats or ambulates. Almost invariably they're designed to fleece people with more money than God's good sense. Or to pay for the outrageous rent and the overpriced interior decorating job engineered by some wanky black-clad androgynous poseur who's become the latest to fool Sydney's army of brainless socialites, not the food and service. Maybe I'm just getting too old and crabby to put up with the preening poncing pretensions of Sydney's ridiculous chefs du jour. Don't take any notice of me. But if you want my advice, go to a little roast shop in Chinatown with laminex-topped tables, where the Koreajn guy next to you slurps his mee loud enough to wake his ancestors, or a decent hole-in-the-wall Italian family eatery where they'll give you a couple of complimentary amaretti and not expect a tip and where you can probably share a bottle of red with the family at the end of the night. It might be Italian wine, which by definition is greatly inferior to the Australian product, but hell - wine's wine!

The ANA is now the Shangrila. Haven't you got to love Neiloz! He's dead right of course. I've eaten at some of the swanky restaurants in this town but there is so much prentention about them sometimes.I'm not convinced that that pretention is confined to Sydney.An eating out experience can be very enjoyable at a byo restaurant with no carry on and decent inexpensive food. Maybe you are getting old and crabby Neil but what you say makes a lot of sense.However I fear I won't be seeing you in the social pages any time soon!

I guess I went a bit over the top, Peter. I take back the bit about the noodle-slurper bit - I've had that happen to me a few times in Laminex table land and it's not 'buon appetito' territory, that's for sure.

But looking back, I've experienced deep disappointment more often in flash places than in el cheapos, no doubt because my expectations were higher - after all, if you've only paid $30 a head, there's a limit to how badly you can be let down. Maybe I was distracted by the sound of my Scottish ancestors whirring in their graves (they went into overdrive when we at at Tetsuya's).

I've also eaten in a few of the flasher Sydney eateries, not always using my own money (there's nothing like a corporate credit card to ease the pain, especially after a few glasses of red). And I agree - Sydney certainly hasn't got a monopoly on wankery. Maybe it's just that Sydney, being wealthier than other cities, just has a better supply of citizens with more money than taste.

Mate, the only social pages in which I'd have even a slim chance of making an appearance are those of the "Canberra Times", a pretty sad effort, and that would be in the background, with my nose pressed against the window.

Sally and Randy, by way of a (rare) constructive suggestion, it would be worth looking out for a copy of the Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide -it's a Penguin paperback, I think. And remember, in Australia you don't have to tip the buggers 15% - or anything, if you don't feel like it.

Neil, you are a kindred spirit!
And posers such as chef Neil Perry have a lot to answer for. He is singularly responsible for most of Qantas' crappy food nowadays. That's something I'm just personally miffed over.

My $37.50 lunch for two only becomes a $A40 rounded off effort if my best friend and I both went home reasonably happy.
Not that we were asking for much. Just a friendly atmosphere in which to dine and friendly staff.
I SO, SO hate the American view of tipping and how they think we Aussies should tip. I've heard it ALL (on another board with mostly American posters).They just don't "get" how Aussies see the whole issue.
If we have had a "so-so" meal, we will probably just pay the bill. A better meal will mean we chip in a few dollars, round up the bill and make a "tip". In the best restaurants, we are more conscious of making a tip- IF it is deserved. What we tip is irrelevant. But to some of our American friends, it leaves us open to real scrutiny. "How much" seems to be a real concern.
Personally, if asked, I'd say NOYB. None of your business.
But tipping IS a big concern for most Americans.
For most Aussies, it is not. We couldn't care less.
If you "round up", that's fine. If you add a little, that's fine also.
If you "go overboard" that's just ridiculous.
Who wants to see American-style tipping become commonplace in Australia? Definitely NOT me!
Possum

No argument from me, Possum. The difference is that Australian waiters are paid a living wage but their American counterparts aren't - I think minimum wage (currently US$5.15 an hour, I think) is typical but have been told that it can be lower than that in some states. So the staff really depend on those tips. I think the major downside of the system is that, unless you're in a hurry, service can be uncomfortably fast, and sometimes you feel under pressure to pay up and get out so as to make way for the next table of tippers.

SnRSeattle,

There are fabulous views from the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge (courtesy Bridge Climb) and you don't have to put up with any mediocre food at elevated prices.

Neil, I love it when you talk dirty in italian. Re minimum wage yes it is $5.15 per hour, but waitstaff doesn't get that I think only $2.50 + tips.

Santa Fe has recently adopted an $8.50/ hour for businesses w/ more than 25 employees, going to $9.50 1st Jan. '05. This is extremely rare in US, but John Kerry is proposing a rise to around $7.50

A/D

Oh well, there goes the rest of the business vote. But how can anyone be expected to get by on less than $300 per week - even if they can score that increasingly rare species, a full-time job? I guess the customary "it'll cost jobs and we'll all be rooned" cry is going up?

Does anyone remember the Laminex-tabled P&S Cafe in Pitt Street? Used to have the best seafood in Sydney - needed a reservation for lunch on Thursday and Friday. Come on you boys from Greenwoods - it's down your end of town.

Sorry - don't know why I said "Greenwoods", the brain's frizzled - too much State of Origin. Meant "Ashwoods".

I do have a vague memory of the P&S, but I don't remember ever actually dining there. But, then, of course back in those days I never had any money to dine anywhere, as every time I got ten shillings together it was off to Ashwoods for another treasure. Ended up working there, but never made much money out of it, as I kept taking my wages in records!

Ashwoods is still alive, you know, but none of the "old guard" are connected with it any more. It has changed location to a better part of town (even though now you have to descend a flight of stairs to enter), and its buying and selling policy has changed to being a carbon-copy of all the other second-hand record shops in the world. That's progress!

OK you guys, I bet no-one's as old as me. Does anyone remember Livios's in Rowe St, near the Australia Hotel and not far from Ashwoods which I think was in George St - I was only 16 at the time but we thought we were terribly sophisticated eating spag. bol. and hanging with the beatniks.

"..wanky black-clad androgynous poseur..."

Neil, I'm still laughing about that one! We have our share of them on Miami's South Beach.

John, have you got room for a few more? It seems that quite a few Sydney chefs are now working in London, but I don't know how many can be absorbed that way. LOVE that dressing of lime juice, coriander sprigs, chillies, fish sauce, balsamic vinegar, raspberry jus, truffle oil, Thai basil, Sichuan black vinegar and shaved parmesan! Makes me nostalgic for MrsG's spag bol, although I ate mine at Diethnes restaurant at the grotty end of Pitt Street, washed down with a bottle of Resch's Dinner Ale.

Anyway, I think it's time we stopped persecuting the English - surely after Rolf Harris and all those Z-grade TV soaps they've suffered enough. I must admit that the Poms are a fighting race though - the cruel sods retaliated with "The Bill", which has got to be the WMD of soaps. And what did the Americans do to warrant us returning Mel Gibson to the land of his birth? OK, I was forgetting about Dubya.