banksii

a beautiful restaurant! very quick service, our food arrived at our table in a timely manner. every dish i had was delicious! the prawn bisque was absolutly delicious! all dishes are made to share and the only downfall was that i felt the dishes were a little too small. we also ordered a lovely bottle of rose wine which was also very nice. the service is exceptional and the ambience made you feel right at home. wasn't too loud either.

relaxing atmosphere, comfortable. friendly and attentive staff. good for kids too. excellent food even the serving portion is just right, we had a space for dessert. fresh and light. and oh vermouth! my new favourite! i had 2! will definitely recommend and return. 😀

i really wanted to like banksii, but being greeted by arguing waitstaff, small portions of food and then being told we only had our table for 90 minutes.... at the end of the 90 minutes made me not want to return.

it seems like it's still trying to fix teething problems

food was disappointing - had the banquet for a friend's birthday lunch. dishes were lacklustre and some ingredients were used in multiple dishes - such as sweet and sour currants - not acceptable when paying $70 + 10 service per head for a meal. service was not friendly. would not return.

this place is amazing. ticked every box - fabulous food, sexy as hell decor, and friendly lovely staff. went for new years eve dinner with my husband and 2 children, both of whom are under drinking age. booking was a delight with lovely staff happy to accommodate my son who has a nut allergy and my concerns about whether it was ok to have kids there. nye was a set menu and i didn't really know what to expect. what we received exceeded every expectation. the food was fabulous, the champagne cocktails with gosset champagne were divine and the service blew me away. friendly warm and attentive and lovely to my kids. i can't recommend this place enough. i've sent colleagues there and all have come back happy.

not good at all! some dips, prosciutto, rabbit salad and woolworth chicken and you pay $69. not happy at all! quality of service average. you will get better options at that price in that area.

sadly, a disappointing meal :( the grilled prawns and ocean trout rillette were tasty, but fairly unimaginative. the snapper main was the let down for me—well cooked but covered in an oily chilli-y sauce(?) (not sure if you can call it a sauce) which really had no flavour. best tip: if you order the creamed macadamia/rillette, ask for gluten free bread—it's dark and seeded and way more delicious than the white crostini they came with. possibly the only perk about having gf friend?

had a very enjoyable long lunch on a quintessential sydney day. tapas style menu with an assortment of choices but leaning towards seafood.
all dishes were very good. subtle but clear flavours presented in way to let the food speak for itself. the highlight was the large plate snapper fillets which was sensational. i rarely order fish so was delighted.
prawns, prosciutto and sardines as our small plate choices were light, crisp and perfectly suited to a lunch time summer day.
the trifle covered with season fruit including blackberries completed a very pleasurable couple of hours.
dining space itself invites a relaxed atmosphere with the high roof in the open outside dining area. once the ferry terminal works clears the promenade it will be an ambient treat.
service was excellent also. it was very busy but our waiter was attentive to both the wine top ups and our needs without being overbearing.
pricing is a little heavy for the portion size but it is what it is. plans afoot already the take the dg, as i'm a banksii fan.

having read the previous reviews & reluctantly shown up for dinner, i was better than surprised, i was sold.
great food. really great.
they obviously got the "crap service" memo because the service was spot on - informative, attentive and with spark (thanks amanda!).
the vermouth specialty thing was really interesting too - which left us vermouth neophytes wishing they offered a tasting event so we could explore it more.
despite it not being a cheap night out, i'll be back.

perfectly located on barangaroo's wharf facing the sea seems to be a worse than a mediocre restaurant. 
i highly recommend walking past this place and going to subway close by. 
complete rip off. for 83$ (including a 10% service charge for an otherwise absence of any good service to top up with rude staff), there was hardly anything that can fill your stomach on the veg menu.
one of the dishes was 2 carrots with pumpkin puree which my mates got as a garnish on their beef. serisously?? if you cannot make anything vegetarian - i suggest do not have a veg menu. its better than fooling people.

so to start with, the waitress did not even explain the menu to the table and there was not a single copy given to us to know what exactly were we paying for. i luckily got to glance at it as i was the only vegetarian in the group which they were informed during the booking. i am saying luckily because one dish was completely missed which i had to ask for and then they got it with no apologies for missing it. so basically, if i hadnt seen the menu before, i wouldn't even know that i paid for 4 courses of plants (thats literally what they served me....plants!!!) now dont tell me that talented chefs cannot come up with anything else but leaves broken from a shrub dressed with lemon and olive oil for that dominated most of my courses. the only thing substantial on there was a tart which was once again a 'wild weed' one....so they didn't miss a chance of leaving out greens there too. whatever happened to good old pasta (any sort would do) or mushrooms, pumpkin, eggplant, avocado, asparagus, cauliflower etc. etc.... basically anything filling on at least one of the dishes on the set menu. 
actual service wise- it was almost absent. i would guess a table that spent almost $1200 deserved to be asked how is the food or how has everything been (touching the tables as most would call it) at least once during the entire evening. if they did, i would have told them this then itself and wouldn't be writing this instead. but alas, it seemed they didn't even find our table worth of any feedback! 
all in all, you are a new restaurant in a newly formed locality, feedback should matter to you and should be taken seriously. i could see that you were busy today but if you don't listen to what customers are saying ,this is going to be beginner's luck and repeat business will suffer for future.

having stayed in the cbd for 4+ years and eating at many many restaurants, this is the 1st time ever i have felt the urge to actually post a review because it deserves to be heard. i have never felt so cheated while dining at any other place. i truly hope this is the first and last time i feel this way!

possibly one of the best new restaurants to open in barangaroo. staff are incredibly attentive, and super knowledgeable about all the dishes.
we weren't sure what to order and our waiter put together a suggested mini menu for us, along with suggested drinks. blew us away! the pick of small dishes is the prosciutto and it's a true must have.
the larger dishes are inseparable, and the dessert...well wow. the trifle is their speciality but the chocolate mousse is, if anything, slightly better.
add to this the incredible view of the sunset over the water, and it's hard to think of a better venue for a great dinner, and great night.

“those dandelions in the snapper are foraged and we ferment our own chillis.” angelica, our waitstaff told us, pointing towards the rows of jars on the shelf in the banksii restaurant, one of a few restaurants that have recently opened in barangaroo. barangaroo has become quite a food scene. i’ve seen the development of barangaroo from the beginning, having heard endless drilling and cranes, gone through several fire drill (and one real fire) evacuations, as i worked in one of the neighbouring office blocks before moving into the international towers. it was hard to imagine at the time that it could become a village, a foodies village, where people would want to hang out. well now it is the latest hipster place in sydney to eat, drink and shop with david jones opening last week. barangaroo is the new sydney.

banksii – named for sir joseph banks, the first botanist to come to australia, not the graffiti artist – has just opened on the soon-to-be-waterfront edge of barangaroo. the soft gumtree inspired trunk colours – faded blues, dusky pinks and greys – are a nice departure for husband and wife team, hamish ingham and rebecca lines, whose bar h restaurant tends towards dark, minimalist black.i stuck my nose in on their second night of trade to find out more about this vermouth bar – the first one in australia, no less. using a combination of her own fabulous table service and thorough menu tasting notes, rebecca is determined to show sydneysiders that vermouth is the drink we never knew we wanted. to this end she has even devised a clever system of symbols to indicate how each of her forty odd vermouth selections scrub up best. we tried a lustau vermouth ($10) on the rocks. based on two sherry wines (pedro ximenez and amontillado) that were aged separately and then blended with more than ten botanicals, this red vermouth has the complexity of a cocktail, and could easily replace your end of night old fashioned. expect some sweetness, a bit of nuttiness, and some citrussy orange peel...