Rum Fire

I dined here a while back (for the first time) with some of my family. I thought the service and the food was exceptional.
When I made the booking (days earlier) I asked about the full duck and how it was to be cooked/​served etc. I was told that they no longer had it on the menu, but despite this they were still happy to order one in for me and fulfill my request. I was impressed!
So, we ordered a bunch of entrees to share and then we had the duck as main. Every dish that we ordered was perfect and delicious. The dishes were substantial and we struggled to finish our wonderful meal. We didn’t order dessert.
The staff members were amazing (it wasn’t too busy on this night). From the wait staff, to the bar staff to the chef … they all receive 10:10 from me. Not to mention the bloke who took my reservation booking, as he gets an 11:10.
The chef also came to check that we were enjoying his deliciously cooked duck … wow, it was great!
We enjoyed a nice bottle of white from Lisa McGuigan Winery (at a fair price) plus some delicious single glasses of reds. The wine list is rather small, but has some good quality at reasonable prices.
So, my experience here was fantastic. My family was very impressed and I could/​would easily return.
One issue: The bathrooms are unisex and on a busy night I could see the ladies would hog them. How about installing a stand-​up job for the blokes?!

How can they lose your order entirely on an electronic ordering system! Ordered a simple meal before the rugby, yes had to wait 10 min in queue to order but that was to be expected. When the people before me in the queue received their meals I naturally thought we would be next and we’d have just enough time to eat and see the start of the Waratahs game. Well the people in front, finished and left while we waited, partner went to ask about order «it’s coming out now» was the response… 10 minutes later & nothing!
Completely F@&$ing useless staff had no idea where our order was, what we’d ordered or how much I paid! Missed the start of the game and ate in the stadium!
Don’t waste your time!

Horrible. Where to start?
Massively understaffed which explains why the service is slow. Meals didn’t come together — on a table of 7 only 5 came at the same time and we didn’t wait long enough for the other two meals after 30mins, and one was inedible.
The line up for the bar was long and arduous also.
I feel the only reason this place gets patrons is because of its proximity to entertainment venues, honestly this place should be avoided at all costs in favour of the Bavarian Beer Café.
The guy who seems to be running the place is incompetent and unfriendly, definitely unsuited to the hospitality industry.
Such a shame — this place has so much potential, all it needs is more staff.

We spotted this eatery as we got to the Entertainment Quarter this afternoon. It was very promising early on with its rustic décor & Campos coffee. We sat down on a Saturday afternoon at about 1:15pm and there was plenty of seating. They have a great outdoors area with big benches to enjoy your food at & plenty of shade & seating indoors if the occasion calls for it.
The menu is very comprehensive with salads, entrees, pizza, pasta, seafood, meats, chicken & the rest. We ordered at the counter & decided to cover off a very interesting selection of foods. I was absolutely captivated by the assorted sweets that they had tucked behind the display case, picking up a vanilla slice, cherry slice, custard donut & rocky road to go with my coffee, but we added a Greek Salad to the meal as well — just to get our nutrients fix.
The coffee & the sweets were out almost instantaneously but the salad didn’t come out for another 15 or so minutes. The cakes were beautifully made & delicious in flavour and large enough to satisfy my ruthless sweet tooth. The coffees however, were not as brilliant. They were quite bitter for Campos beans and seemed to be a touch cold when they came out, which was very surprising. Also, the Greek Salad was a touch off as well. There was no real presentation & the added chicken was a touch rubbery. If not for the cakes, the food & coffees were very average.
Although it is a great venue with plenty of room, it lacked any real atmosphere. There was no music & it was awfully quite for Saturday lunch time. Although the staff were helpful & timely, they were quite reserved themselves, which didn’t contribute at all to the atmosphere & experience. For these reasons it was just a bit off on this occasion. However, I would recommend this place for groups or families as there is plenty of variety in the menu & space for seating, probably more of a dinner location though.

3 staff walked straight past us without any acknowledgement, I thought we were standing at the wrong counter, turned out we were in the right spot, they were just rude.
Coffee is average — Campos.
This is right in the entertainment district so there are plenty of other options close by.

Not often I start a review before I get the food at the place I am reviewing but since I have a lot of time on my hands thought I’d get under way. Guess that says something right there.
This is one of those places that is either packed or empty, since it is in entertainment destination, and not likely to draw people in their own right.
We timed it badly for a pre-​show meal, arriving just as everybody from the previous show was looking for dinner, so pretty much every venue in The Entertainment Quarter had a queue, some more than others, and in the case of RumFire we were able to get a seat at a shared table right away, although they were pretty packed. Guess that says something too, and we were warned of a 30 minute wait for food. OK, can handle that, have a beer and wait. One drawback with that plan — turned out to be a twenty minute wait to get served at the bar as the lone barman tried to contend with an overwhelming number of clients, all wanting to pay by card, and one EFTPOS terminal. Made sure i got an extra beer as I certainly didn’t have time or stamina to go back for another none
The biggest issue with this place is the lack of staff and coordination. The four folks next to us all ordered their burgers together. While we watched two got theirs, then about 25 minutes later they brought over the other two. Turns out the lady who was waiting was having none of it — she had seen one of the burgers sitting under the heat lamp for over 20 minutes waiting for the other one, and refused it, asking for a refund. The waitress really didn’t understand enough English to figure it out so the supervisor came over to try and deliver the two burgers, one fresh one not, and eventually with very bad grace refunded their money.
To be honest, our burger was not to bad, we had the RumFire special, and the fries were pretty good.
So, pick your times — if it is busy, walk on by, if not, might be worth a try.
I certainly won’t be back.

Went in, wasn’t seated.
Found our own seat, table had crap all over it.
4min later finally got a waiter’s attention — asked to clear the table — given a sneer and some grunt. He walked off — not sure if he was going to clear the table.
Waiter walks past. And goes clean up crap on another table.
8min later he’s back, takes the crap off the table. Doesn’t wipe it.
5min later we got another waiter’s attention — asked for a menu and a drink.
That only took 2min.
(At this point wanted to leave, but only other choices here were pubs, and wanted some nice food)
Chose some food. Not going to rant about the menu, that will take too long.
After another 5min walked up to the front to ask someone to take an order.
Order taken to food arrive about 25min.
Drink hadn’t arrived at this point.
Food was plonked down on our cleared (unwiped) table.
We had no cutlery.
Cutlery only took 3min to get. Also asked about our drink at this time.
…skip horror story…
Time to leave. Walked up to the counter to pay.
Counter empty.
Wait staff walked past. Ignored us. Not her job apparently.
A few more of that and ready to just walk out.
Walked to the kitchen area, but not the cook’s job.
Eventually someone comes and asks if we want to pay the bill? Well… no, I’m just standing here for fun.
Aaaaaaaaand, she can’t help either, but she’ll call someone else who will take our money.
Don’t ever go here!

Holy mother of awful, how is this place still open? We had to hunt down food menus and paid $ 11 for a 1L bottle of San Pellegrino which we sell at our own café IN BRONTE for $ 5.50.
Customers around us had been waiting ages for their food and the staff do not seem on top of it at all. In short– seriously over priced for what you are getting and service is kind of non-​existent.

In short, don’t bother.
We had five people, ordered together and had our meals delivered one at a time with about an hour between the first and the last. The floor staff had no idea which tables they needed to deliver food to and then passed the buck when we asked where our food was because they worked out of the second kitchen rather than the first. We were far from the only table experiencing these issues.
Oh…and getting cutlery to eat our breakfasts was also a challenge and greeted as a chore.
It may have been the day of the Color Run nearby, and they may have had more customers than normal, but RumFire is huge and nothing excuses getting it so badly wrong.

45mins ’til the Spiegeltent opens. Mum and I are middlingly hungry. Not main course hungry, but could monster a snack.
«Hey you,» I batted my lashes at a young dreadlocked waiter. I don’t know why, he didn’t either. Awkward start. «Can you feed us in 40mins or less? We’ll only order entrees.» He nodded. Onward Christian soldiers.
This place has a dark, edgy fit-​out. It just looks cool, y’know? The food is good. Not spectacular, not bad, but perfectly serviceable. The salt’n’pepper squid ($ 12) was on the large-​ish side, always good, and the creamy chilli prawns came in a nice little teapot that offset the sort-​of tomato-​soup-​tasting sauce, but the woodfired bread that came with it was tasty as bro.
I wanna try out the bar that looks out onto the promenade. It also looked cool. So did I though. Cruising around with my Mum. Look out, ladies. Here comes a catch.

Coffee is fair to good, my friend ordered a smoothie and brownie, both apparently delicious.
I ordered the gypsy ham sandwich which was lackluster.
The moral of the story is, keep looking — there are lots of nicer places around

Long wait for coffee. Order all wrong. Overcharged to boot. Wrong