The Grounds of the City

Service was good, but a bit understaffed. Coffee was good, but food was subpar. Especially for the price. Ordered 2 pasta dishes (bucatini and parpadelle) which was very bland.

My daughters and I loved the decor, the staff were very attentive and courteous. The food was delicious. My son and his family have been to The Gounds of the City for a special occasion as well. I wanted somewhere special for breakfast and to top off an enjoyable weekend. Thank you for a wonderful experience.

The staffs were nice and friendly and the food there were good af!! Will definitely go there again!’

Service Exceptional, Food Outstanding, Atmosphere Perfect

The Grounds of the City has been our brunch choice a few times now - they have the most delicious French toasts!

Our waiter was excellent with a delightful accent!

My second solo visit in two weeks. Loved all of it. Excellent food and coffee, staff are attentive and friendly, ambience is fabulous. Lots to see and take in. Most enjoyable start to my day.

great business meeting place.
we always go there for coffee n cake.

Buzzing atmosphere but not too loud, and delicious brekky menu

An utterly standard menu, slightly overpriced, made worse by very poor seating and service processes.
When it opened it had interesting dishes and a bit of risk. Now it is bland and just relying on the great decor. Probably to make all the tourists feel safe.

It was my first time going to ‘The Grounds of the City’. It’s was unbelievable. I love what they done to the place. Love that old vintage look. Anyway, everything was perfect; the food , the service. I would definitely come back again.

We enjoyed a lovely dinner. Food was delicious and could not fault the staff or the service.

We had the High Tea. It was pleasant enough, the service and food and atmosphere. We were charged $5 for honey to sweeten my companion's chai latte. Will not be back.

Food is great, great tasting and well balanced. Our server was awesome too, be back soon!!

Decent food however would insider this pricey for portion sizing. Great drinks menu available and great atmosphere. A bit noisy if you come in the evening peaks however not a deal breaker.

Very good experience we were 5 people everyone ordered something different. Healthy and filling and servers excellent! Must make reservations this location is on the smaller side.

We had a great breakfast at The Grounds of the city. Would recommend!

Thanks for the great customer service!

It was great. We had an enjoyable evening with time to chat but not too long to wait. The service was excellent. My friends hadn't been there before and commended me on the great choice. Thank you.

We had to wait too long for our drinks and food, we had a young child with us and could not get a desert for him, everything we asked for was sold out, however they were giving them to the customers who were having High Tea, they were also selling them at the take away outside. They wouldn't even give us an ice cream for him. The service was very slow we didn't complain as it was Fathers day but when the bill was due we has 2 waitresses almost on top of us.
The food was good and quiet enjoyable but my meal was supposed to come with a 'The Grounds garden radish salad" I did not get the salad and when I asked the girl said she asked the kitchen and they said it was combined on the sandwich. IT WAS NOT!!
I also booked online I actually thought I had booked The Alexandria Grounds but somehow due to the way the website is constructed we ended up in the City. It was not the Fathers Day experience we had hoped for.

Fabulous food and atmosphere. Batch coffee was awesome

Great atmosphere for breakfast. Steak and eggs excellent. Service from staff good.

We had high expectations but despite having a great ambiance we were served cold coffees and cold breakfast. Not the best for Father’s Day breakfast. Was very disappointed. We mentioned it to the staff and my husband got another coffee and mine was taken off. But I didn’t enjoy my breakfast and my husbands steak and eggs wasn’t very nice cold!

Went for lunch - is extremely loud, busy and pumping. Service was ok but the wait staff looked run off their feet non stop. Food was was nice. Coffee order had to be redone as it was cold on arrival. Soooo LOUD though. Acoustics need to be looked at.

Fantastic. Superseded all my expectations. Loved the experience & look forward to returning soon

Love the cafe and have been many times. However I cannot get a booth I will not come due to noise levels in the section opposite. Once I was allocated there I could not hear my guest speak so we simply canceled after 5 minutes and left. You’re not the only one with this MAJOR problem these days. Can’t hear no customer. So no booth no come. Everything else is spot on. Congratulations!

We went there yesterday. The staff can’t understand our English. It was so noisy there. We were been told we only have 1.5hours to finish our meal. Not very nice place to catch up friends. Won’t go there again.

the staff and service was always nice

We really enjoyed the ambience of this venue - so charming. We particularly liked the soft lighting, which added to the old world charm. Our waiters were cheerful and attentive. They made us feel special! The poached eggs on sourdough toast was delicious! We booked online and were seated at one of the booths. The seats were very comfortable and the walls of the booth helped keep some of the noise out. We will definitely be back!

Based on this particular experience I answered not to the above question. I come to the grounds quite frequently and this was a disappointing experience.
Firstly I lined up in the line that said “pre-booked reservations” which I assumed was there to fast track those who had booked but whenever the host came back to the entry he kept taking people from the other line. It wasn’t until I stepped in, and felt quite rude for doing so, that he took notice of us in the other line waiting.
Then my friend who is a vegetarian ordered the omelette without pancetta, we were assured this was possible. The waiter even announced it was pancetta free when he put it down. After a few bites she asked me, if that’s pancetta and when she opened the omelette there was pancetta throughout. Another omelette was brought out but we were still charged for the omelette which I was surprised about.

The wait staff were really friendly and the design is nice. But this place is really busy and really noisy. The music is played too loud and when you're seated almost on top of the table beside you, it's difficult to have a conversation. When it eventually arrived, the coffee was barely lukewarm, and then they forgot to bring our food to the table. When we asked after our meal, it arrived promptly but was stone cold. I returned my meal and the subsequent meal was barely above cold. It was clear that they'd left our food on the counter and didn't prepare the meal fresh when this was discovered, and we were offered nothing apart from an embarrassed apology by the wait person. I contacted Grounds about this but they've chosen not to respond.

Nice mood. Good customer service but salty pasta and too hard to chew sourdough bread for steak sandwich.

What a lovely space, unlike the grounds of Alexandria there is no kids menu.

Service is impeccable - bookings help.

Best coffee in Sydney

Great atmosphere, staff very friendly and the food is absolutely delicious

We arrived early and was greeted by a host who check us in. She asked us to take a seat outside and would call us when the table was ready, however she did not come back to get us and we had to ask if the table was ready or not. We were having breakfast and asked a couple of simple questions like does the omelette come with toast or not but the waitress did not seem to understand or know the answer. The food arrived in good time but was fairly cold. Toast was underdone and a side of roasted tomatoes did not arrive with the food and we eventually cancelled it.

Loved everything about it! This was my second visit & I will be back again!

Suggestion if you have rude and unhelpful staff with little knowledge of the food you offer, food better be excellent unfortunately it wasn’t. Great ambience let down by poor argumentative staff and average food.

Booking now limited to 1.5 hour. The food used to be very good but the quality dropped a lot. It tasted like it was prepared on the rush and missed some flavour - too expensive for what you get
Also they were out of oranges on a Sunday morning so couldn't order any juice.

I hope there’s more food and desserts on the menu especially vegetarian because my husband and my friends are and they are not able to order anything except desserts .

Stunning fitout, attentive service & the best breakfast ratatouille ever,

A fantastic desert and drinks experience, topped off with the most pleasant and friendly waitress and staff!