Review Battlesticks At Scratchleys - Newcastle

Lovely views and the food was great.

My husband and I had heard all of the rage about this place so on several weeks ago on Saturday the 24th March we booked in for an 8pm reservation. Here are the highlights... Strike 1: The table reserved for us and that we were sat at was dirty. Like, spilled water and food crumbs all over it dirty. When I asked the young blonde girl behind the bar for a rag to wipe the dirty table she picked up a blue rag and.. wait for it... HANDED IT OVER THE BAR TO ME .. and said "sorry babe" and let me do the table cleaning! My husband's jaw dropped to the floor. Yet, we are positive and open minded people so we just chuckled with raised eyebrows, sipped our espresso martinis and began browsing the menu. Ordered lots of yummy nibbles and.... Strike 2: THE FOOD was terrible. Look, like we aren't pro chefs, but seriously, the food was TERRIBLE. The house salad is sliced iceberg with slivered nuts and a crappy honey mustard. My child could put together a better salad than this. The chorizo meatballs and risotto balls tasted like they had been frozen and thawed and slapped on the plate. The halloumi was sloppily, unevenly sliced and grilled and doused in something sticky. The photos speak for themselves I think. So naturally we just think to drink more booze....hard to screw that up.. until. Stirke 3: I was waiting at the bar to grab a glass of wine. Not only was there some sort of liquid spilled ALL over the bar, (to the point where you could not set anything on it unless you didn't mind mystery fluid covering it) the young bartender with brown dreadlocks was staring RIGHT at it and did not wipe it once! Even with customers looking at it obviously disgusted. Look, I'm talking there were long dark hairs mixed in this liquid. It was seriously stomach turning. I get it, things are busy but this chick was not so frantically busy that she or someone could not give the bar a wipe. I know what "in the weeds" looks like, I bartended for years in uni and service 101 is WIPE THE BAR UP. In summary, Battlesticks has tried extremely hard to portray an atmosphere of luxurious and exclusive waterfront dining. In our opinion, they have failed miserably at achieving anything remotely close to this by skimping on food quality and proper staffing/training. Hope this helps others in the Newy area. My hubs and I make the best of all situations and were sort of just laughing the whole time at the situation. We just want other people out there to know our experience so they can make the decision to spend their money elsewhere. Hey, at least the espresso martinis were alright.

Amazing views, great customer service and yummy food and drinks! One of Newcastle's Gems. A Must Visit venue!

Great food, nice view and great food!! (Repeated as the food was great!!)

Best happy hour in town! 12-6pm on Sundays, gorgeous place to spend the arvo!

We had lunch overlooking the harbour at a window seat. Perfect location and the fresh air through the open windows at our table was really nice. We had about 5 tapas plates of delicious food and the service was great.

Stunning location. The food was superb, staff were extremely accommodating, polite and friendly. If you're going, I would recommend booking ahead, as it's quite popular. One of the city's best restaurants.

Food was fresh, delicious and very well priced for the quality and serving size. The team here were warm and friendly and live music was a perfect volume and very enjoyable. Loved dinner here this evening!