Review Ori Cafe - Springwood

This cafe has a awesome vibe. Although it was super busy, the service was excellent. Food was definitely good , and overall it was a great dining experience. Will definitely visit again when in the area.

My salt and pepper squid was too oily, my wife's fish and chips were good. Good coffee, cake was in the window a bit too long. Staff were nice and not over the top pricing. I'd go back.

I came with my staff on a short notice and they were very accommodating. The food was great and they also manage to cater for coeliac. Thank you for being so understanding and accommodating. I’ll definitely come back!

The quality of the food now doesn't match the cost. Much of the food isn't prepared on the premises, just cooked from the box it came in. Friendly staff who appeared overworked. The slice of $10 Cake was so thin, worked out $1 per bite, or so. Pleasant ambience 😉

We went to the Ori for dinner with a bigger group one night and my partner found a dead cockroach in his salad. When informing the wait staff, they apologised and took his plate away without offering him a replacement. Seeing as this happened towards the end of the meal, we may have overlooked this error on their part, but the real slap in the face came when we walked up to the counter to settle our bill. The restaurant manager herself handed it to us and offered us a laughable 5 PERCENT OFF for the inconvenience. My partner and I were so stunned that we just paid and left – looking back now, we wish we had handled the situation differently. We have both worked in hospitality before and we get it, accidents happen – but the sheer lack of respect and customer service still baffles me to this day, especially from a place that offers pricier pub food like the Ori. I can only strongly discourage anyone from dining here; your money is best spent elsewhere.

First time visitor but will definitely be back. Lovely fire in winter. Great food with generous portions. Friendly staff.

Great dinner and dessert menu. Inside and outside dining options. Extensive beer, wine, spirits and cocktail options. Bar and meal specials change regularly. Staff are always engaging. Great place for a drink and food in the Blue Mountains

Stopped in without a booking for brunch and the lovely staff were very accommodating… so glad we stopped in the greatest brunch of scones and full breakfast we’ve had !!! Thanks ORI Cafe !!

lovely friendly helpful staff... <br/>The fires and especially open fire in the bar are completely cosy and warm<br/><br/>I have eaten there on occasion and had endless cups of coffee.<br/>The staff are more than happy to my weirdo coffee order - almond latte 1/2 strength with a fake sugar.<br/><br/>If you didn't like the coffee Cara, go back in and I am sure they will help you with your problem.<br/><br/>Also, I have yet to see anyone do anything but praise the food.

Bad dinning experience. Polenta chips ordered as a starter were pure mush. Zucchini fritters oily and burnt. Pork belly<br/>Main had to be sent back. The bottom was burnt and hard and the top was chewy. It should be crispy crackling on the top and soft, juicy meat. The plum sauce was watery, the side salad had heaps of chilli in it and there was an ant on my plate. Not to mention that wait time. Very disappointed. We won’t be going back. The only good thing was the chips.

Our Sunday breakfast. Michael had the big breakfast very enjoyable. I had salmon Benedict which was lovely. The cappuccino was a strong brew with a nice amount of froth. The staff were friendly. Thanks guys for a lovely breakfast

I have lived in Springwood for 6 years and always resisted going as I was never wowed by the menu and its prices. My hunches were correct. <br/><br/>I went to celebrate a friend's birthday a month back and unfortunately was left underwhelmed. The waitress was lovely, friendly and attentive and that's where the positives end. <br/><br/>On recommendation from a friend, I ordered duck ravioli for $33. What I received was a small dish, 8 pieces of small ravioli and a thin soup. The ravioli didn't do it for me, the soup seemed a bit confused in its flavours. I wasn't impressed for the overflated price. I would rather pay for something at The Bunker. The Ori has good potential, but needs a severe menu and price shake up.

This place has an identity issue, it thinks it's a big swankey city restaurant, but sadly it's not. Extremely over priced food and bad coffee. Not to mention the very small portion sizes. There are better options in Springwood than this place.

We came to the 'Ori' for our date night as we have been doing for the last few years (and breakfast most weekends). The food until the last 4 months had been spectacular and it has been our go-to place.<br/><br/>We have only had one bad experience with an overcooked breakfast minute steak, which we requested 'bloody'. (The middle aged waitress, with abhorrent service skills who has always been terrible, and indeed self righteous, served us at this time, but more on that later). Other than that it has been great.<br/><br/>Lately we have been noticing the food quality becoming erratic, hit and miss although generally good. Notwithstanding we thought we would give it another try. To be fair, in general the waitresses are fantastically polite, friendly and helpful and the bearded guy at the bar is a customer service icon. (He should get a pay rise!). He always finds us and takes our order wherever we are!<br/><br/>Tonight, we were undecided between the Ori and the Thai place across the road (which is unashamedly cheap, delicious and satisfying) and ultimately made a poor decision by going to the Ori Cafe. I ordered the '12 hour' beef and my wife ordered the snapper from the Specials board. I made a point of asking if the beef was rare (given our recent experience with the steak) expecting something akin to slow cooked beef cheeks. We were told it probably will fall off the bone. Yeah...no...it was a very, very, very overcooked sirloin steak. Not a 'piece of beef'.<br/><br/>Who cooks sirloin, with its low fat content, for 12 hours....yep me either. It was genuinely like leather. The steak was just tough, and it was a real effort to cut with the steak knife. My wife tried it and agreed it was like eating leather. We laughed and STILL ordered the dessert which was fine. <br/><br/>All good at this stage, we were still giggling as to how bad it was (NB: the entree soft shell crab was lovely). I made my way to the counter to pay and a waitress asked how it was. I told her (with a smile) it made my top 3 worst steaks ever, politely, mind you. <br/><br/>And then the 'witch' appeared. The frumpy, disagreeable, ill-mannered, always angry looking waitress. Although to call her a waitress is being kind, on each occasion she served us she didn't bring water, forgot cutlery etc. She was awful. To be fair, I have been served by work experience student with more skill, verve and enthusiasm. Yet I digress.<br/><br/>This self righteous, middle aged women saw fit to interject and exclaim loudly 'you always complain...every time you come in...'. WOW. Really, you just said that?? We had the misfortune to be served by you 3 or 4 times and we asked once for the steak to come back (nicely) rare. Really.<br/><br/>I might have lost my cool a tiny bit and told her she was one of the worst waitresses I had ever been served by, which is true.<br/><br/>Anyway. We can live with a poor meal now and then but not a rude, really poor, abhorrent waitress. I am sure no one will miss the $250 we spent as a family every fortnight, but since she was so vociferously rude, we will let our friends know. Poor food happens, its forgivable, but rude service is unforgivable.

Popped in for lunch. Great food as usual. I had the chicken supreme - and yes it was, it was fabulous. The Ori is very child friendly, and the service is great.

Never disappointed. Always enjoy eating here, food is always prepared quickly and staff are always presented professionally. The service is impeccable. Waitstaff will always advise of the specials of the day and in a friendly manner too. If it's not busy, expect a friendly chat.<br/><br/>Always enjoyable.

RUDE TO THE POINT OF DYSFUNCTIONAL. We have eaten in restaurants all over the world and so when we find such dreadful hospitality it jars us. This basically is a little pub in Springwood with a kitchen serving foods nearly all day. Great idea. We book for 4pm to see a movie first. The movie is nearly 3 hours so we turn up at 4:30 and every table is reserved and no one is in the restaurant. Our reservation was trashed. They want to put us on a table out the back in a doorway in an empty restaurant! But we made a booking we say, well you didn't arrive and too bad says Teresa who informs us prisilly that "she owns the restaurant" . The theory that every table would be occupied exactly at 6 oclock is just plain silly, and it was said in a manner of rudeness that just made us gobsmacked. The other waitress was also nasty and made lewd comments back at us! It was beyond belief. They argued with my husband and were all rude to the point of embarrassment, And then there's the menu, faux modern with VERY EXPENSIVE prices. $35 for badly cooked duck is not acceptable. We have eaten at restaurants all over the world and $35 for a mains course is at the expensive end of the range, but really it was the attitude, we asked ourselves are they in the hospitality industry? Any maître d' worth her salt would have had us seated and looked after, it was my husbands birthday and we would have spent up big including tipping, but they missed out. I don't want to sledge anyone but this is not a restaurant, Id call it a rude and uninterested pub bistro with pretensions of greatness. The juxtaposition is that if you do eat out a lot the best restaurants are the least pretentious, most hospitable, and make the most money because they love what they do. Teresa appears to be an unhappy camper with delusions of superiority , similar to Nurse Ratchet in One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest as an example. I am not exaggerating.Look further afield because anything else would be better, or simply turn up one night to see a great example of how not to run a restaurant, or as the Chinese say "the fish always rots from the head".

Always impressed. I head up to the Ori Cafe every month or two, and have never been disappointed. It is a little expensive, but that's because it's not serving pub food - the quality here is excellent (and consistently so), and the menu itself is elegant and varied. Although I have tried, and enjoyed, nearly all of the vegetarian options here, the Ori Salad is a standout - easily one of the very best salads I've had (the eggplant chips are a close second. Oh, and the cannelloni).<br/><br/>The restaurant part of the pub has a nice feeling inside and out - inside, there's lots of character and sunlight and lovely high ceilings, and outside there's plenty of room with undercover tables readily available and good privacy from the street noise and traffic.

Very nice. OMGoodness the lamb back strap was devine. I would have licked my plate, but I was trying to be ladylike. Service and staff friendly and speedy.

Have visited the Ori and have always found the food and service to be great. Our most recent visit was for lunch. The outside dining area is lovely. We have always found to food to be delicious and the seasonal menu changes and the daily specials keep us interested and never disappoint. Love the Parmesan eggplant chips! The service is also consistently friendly and attentive without being obtrusive. The Ori will continue to be our local favourite venue for drinks, lunch or dinner.