Sails Restaurant Lavender Bay – my worst booking service and ‘immoral hospitality’ experience

One’s true contemporary ‘immoral hospitality’ experience…

We had a confirmed dinner booking for four 4 guests at Sails restaurant on the wharf at Lavender Bay (Sydney Harbour).   But that was up until yesterday (Friday 23rd January 2026) when that restaurant cancelled our dinner booking out-of-the-blue by email.

They had had a better offer subsequently, but in their email they lied about quote “a technical error“.   Faulty Towers downunder or what?

For us, the booked and confirmed dinner (with credit card details supplied, and confirmed by the restaurant in writing by return 10th January 2026) was to be a special occasion, two couples – my wife and I, plus joining us a husband and wife being close longtime friends of whom are arriving from the UK for once-in-a-lifetime holiday downunder.

Our two friends’ travel schedule is for a month – still to arrive from London via Singapore flying into Sydney later Saturday 21st March 2026 then in the Blue Mountains before heading over to New Zealand, then back home – so a big trip.

So as Aussie locals, we wanted to treat them to the best of Sydney and the Blue Mountains while there are here.  This being their first ever visit to Australia.

Personally, I have dined at Sails twice previously, in fact on this very table (see below).

It was in the days prior under passionate chef ownership – years 1994 and 2017.

It’s our Sydney favourite, given the incredible uninterrupted harbourside vista of Sydney Harbour’s iconic Bridge and the Opera House from our table.  Not surprisingly, this table and vista features as the lead promotional image on the Sails website’s front page.

Sails Restaurant (Lavender Bay) Table #1?   But only it seems if you know the now ‘corporate’ owner.  Source:  https://srghospitality.com.au/venue/sails/  Now, this email address perhaps hints at the underlying problem – the restaurant is no long family-owned as it was, but now controlled by a corporate investment Group: “SRG” – stands for “Sydney Restaurant Group” – so bugger the personal service and instead think $$$$$$$$.

Being such an iconic location for an evening dinner for new visitors to Australia, for this forthcoming occasion 22nd March 2026, I booked Sails way back in August 2025 (some seven months prior), or at least I tried.

In that first booking call, I explained to the Sail’s Restaurant Reservations Coordinator that I had dined there with guests twice previously and I requested the same table if possible.  However, she would not reveal the table number – surely designated best “Table #1”?

I also offered my credit card details to secure the booking and my email address for written confirmation.  But the Reservations Coordinator said she was instructed not to  able be to at that early stage (perhaps unless a private function booking for entire restaurant presented.  It didn’t, but then that’s what happened after our confirmed booking.  Read on…

This iconic dining experience was to be a magical treat for our UK friends – to stroll from our joint stay in The Rocks casually down to Circular Quay, catch a small ferry a short distance  across the Harbour to the McMahon’s Point Ferry wharf at Blue Point situated conveniently immediately adjacent to Sails restaurant adjacent, and back.   Perfect!

And during the early autumnal month of March in Sydney the weather is typically warm with clear skies and light breezes.  The daylight then ends around 8pm, meaning we get the night lights of the bridge after dinner (6pm – 8pm) waiting for the ferry on the wharf in balmy calm harbour conditions.

Being a Tour Director, yes this dining experience was meticulously planned, choreographed and had been tried and tested previously with two of my wife’s family members from the UK.  The event indeed did impress beyond expectations!

Sails booking telephone receptionist claimed that August 2025 was too early to book a table for dinner and that she could only “pencil me in”.  She advised that I would need to phone again in January 2026 to “properly” book closer to the date since that was when the bookings for March 2026 would open.

After finishing my phone booking unsuccessfully with the bookings receptionist, I reflected at the time: what a backward and flawed bookings process in 2025 of uncertainty and delays imposed upon paying guests?

I phoned back again in December – same rebuff by the receptionist, despite that she had indeed chose the same table for her visiting mother from France – different night?

 

10th January 2026:

 

Finally, on January 10th 2026 (now just two month ahead of the event), once the were all back from corporate annual leave, I phone again.

I again request the the same table.  She confirmed it was still available (she knew which one because I referred to the Sails website and she said yet that it was still available – but still no table number on our book confirmation was facilitated despite my repeated requests.   I was finally able to this time provide my credit card details to secure the booking and my email address for written confirmation, which I received thus:

So, on this write basis we have our dinner booking confirmed, yet the Reservation Co-ordinator still refused to confirm our table request yet again.  Why? Did I start smelling a rat?

Read on…

23rd January 2026:

 

Then out-of-the-blue…just two weeks later, I receive this email from the Reservations Coordinator:

My reply same day:

 

So, I fully complied with the Sail’s listed rules and “Cancellation Policy” – not that I was in any hurry to do so.  Yet Sails this it  can do so and renege on a confirmed booking arrangement that was in writing?  Rules for some, eh?

My response is all SRG Hospitality (corporate Group) deserve.  Bugger their counter offer of an alternative lunch and different (date) and “complimentary bubbles”.

This current personal experience with Sails (owned by SRG Hospitality) is an unbelievable disappointing negative experience as a breach of trust from a business I used to trust and admire.

Sails of course was bought out from the original genuine owner and chef.

The original ‘Sails on Lavender Bay’ was a 1970s icon of the former chef owner.  He sold the ideally positioned seafood restaurant to Greg Anderson and Patricia Nunes, who in turn sold out to Bill Drakopoulos in 2008 – the mogul patriarch of Sydney Restaurant Group (since rebranded ‘SRG Hospitality’).

No longer and never again. Sails and SRG cannot be relied upon by the general public, but perhaps only by their high flying mates and total restaraunt private function bookings like weddings, that get first preference over others who have already long booked and confirmed in advance.

There ought to be be a law against such behaviour.   But such behaviour is clearly in my view immoral hospitality by the big end of town.

Check Lucie’s email signature above with the number of restaurants this corporate group owns and dominates the market.  For one, we’ll be avoding this lot like the plague:

• Sails
• sydneyrestaurantgroup.com.au
• Aqua Dining
• Akti
• Ormeggio at the Spit
• Ripples Milsons Point
• The Fenwick
• Ripples Chowder Bay
• Ventuno
• Summer Salt
• The Nielsen
• Ripples Little Manly
• Chiosco by Ormeggio
• Noi
• Ripples Maritime Museum
• Lago Cucina
• Budgewoi Hotel

We have since booked our special dinner elsewhere.

We note the original ‘Sails’ is in Auckland, New Zealand – so it was the name copied by Australia?