The food is delicious..extensive...coffee great and able to have a wine with lunch. I do think though prices are a tad high. I don't think they are attuned to children, not all of us have access to minders.

It had been about a year since I had eaten a meal at Barenz then suddenly I visited twice in a week. On the Friday night, I had such an incredibly tasty chicken risotto that when I visited the following Wednesday ($10 pasta night), I just had to order another chicken risotto. Now the description was slightly less fancy (I can't remember the specifics but I do remember there wasn't asparagus in the risotto on the pasta night menu) but the $10 risotto was also great and happily, the serving size was also much the same as Friday's. My husband and my friend were also impressed with their seafood risottos. My kids shared a fettucine bolognaise which I found bland but it may have just needed some extra seasoning. The bolognaise, being simpler than the risottos, was quite a large serve. All meals were $10, promoted under a "winter warmer" menu even though we were into October by then. I want to go back!

I had a HORRIBLE first time experience with this place.
A table of 5 people, we all ordered at the same time and we all received our meals at the same time, except 1 person. Who received their meal 40 MINUTES LATER (IT WAS A PLATE OF 5 SCALLOPS). Our waitress was so rude, and made mistakes on our order and charged us for it. The food was terrible, my friend had ordered pasta that tasted like plastic, and i ordered a caesar salad that was not fresh and the chicken in the salad did not taste very nice, it was quite rubbery. Such a waste of money for what it was, i will never be coming back here again. Terrible service and terrible food.

Approximate cost: $18

I'm the first to admit I've never enjoyed an entire meal at Barenz but I always walk away looking forward to my next visit.

This was the first time I visited exclusively for coffee and cake and my experience has taught me something for next time. #1 their coffee is waaaay to strong for me. I did the right thing ordering the small mocha because I couldn't even finish that. So now I know to ask them to make it MILDER or milkier or something. #2 that delicious-looking Mars Bar cheesecake I had been eyeing off for a year is as sickly sweet (and as awesomely amazing) as it looks so it wouldn't be the end of the world to share it with my daughter (though I had previously panicked at the thought!)

I almost fainted at the register when it was time to pay - well, not really but that came to about $10.70 (from memory) and just from the look of that cake, I was expecting it to be a lot more. Just for that, Barenz, I will be trying to make coffee (or something) and cake here a regular occurrence! ARThouse in Narellan - take note!

Just one suggestion - please put prices on the cakes in your display cabinet. I would have snacked here a dozen times over had I known your cake selection (unlike some of your menu items) was competitively priced.

I love going to Barenz, whether it's a morning stop for coffee, a relaxing lunch or dinner & drinks in the evening. Their menu & drink selection is very extensive & the staff are always helpful & accommodating. They are even child-friendly which is great for our family. Highly recommended!

Approximate cost: $20

I have never had a problem with Barenz.. they have great food, great service and a wonderful atmosphere.. I often book here to catch up with my friends from the city..

Approximate cost: $30

Have visited here on a busy Saturday night, and also for breakfast. On all occasions I've found the food, service and atmosphere to always be great! Have also been here for a function and there canapé are great, and the amount of food provided is very generous compared to other places. Highly recommend.

My mum and I took the two kids (12 & 5) to Barenz last weekend for afternoon tea. We walked in to a pleasant atmosphere, and were greeted bay friendly waitress who directed us straight to a table. Within 5 minutes of sitting down we were asked if we were ready to order, which we were. We ordered a Nutella pizza, cappuccino, juice and 2 waters. Our drinks were ready and on the table within 8 or so minutes . Cappuccino was delicious and the water came out in a large chilled bottle with four glasses each with a slice of lemon, lovely touch I thought and it refreshed the water. Approximately 10 minutes later the waitress brought out our Nutella pizza. It looked amazing. Each slice had a big fat juicy sweet strawberry on it, dusted with icing sugar and a big scoop of chocolate gelato in the middle. The kids were in their element and mum and I felt comfortable and relaxed and able to chat while the kids ate. The pizza was probably the best dessert pizza I have ever tried, other restaurants make their base to floury or doughy or they just used a per made one. You could really tell that the base had been freshly made and was cooked to perfection. Overall it was a very enjoyable experience and a family friendly environment. I would definitely recommend it to other couples/families.

After 27 months of dining with a two year old in tow we finally ventured out on our own! I wanted to pick a "nice" place from a long list of them that I had only read about; somewhere I didn't really want to take our toddler out to. Since Salute Trattoria down the road didn't return our call to make a reservation, we found ourselves at Barenz.

We didn't have a reservation but it was only around 6.30pm on a Wednesday night. It was fairly busy but it turned out to be much larger inside than we had expected. It also turned out to be family night at Barenz, with $5 childrens meals available! There were actually as many families and mature-aged groups as there were the after-work/uni crowd.

We expected the bar/restaurant to be rather trendy inside, which I guess it was, however it also seemed to be a mish-mash of too many contemporary design features competing with each other. A little try-hard, but the same can be said for the presentation of a few of the clientele (I must admit I had to stifle a laugh when the guy in the rock-shirt-under-his-sports-coat ensemble and fedora hat strutted past me!). We worked hard to locate an available table that wouldn't be constantly brushed by foot traffic along the concrete walkway or many sets of stairs within the dining area. We didn't notice the door at the back of the restaurant or realise it would be opened on and off all night as there were people dining out the back. It did lead to the rest of us inside being exposed to that winter chill throughout our meals. The place certainly wasn't cosy though I expect the addition of cushions, candle-style lanterns on the tables and the dimming of the lights at 7.19pm were to try softening the ambience of this somewhat cold environment.

After comparing a lot of similar menus in the area in the previous few hours, I can say that Barenz is reasonably priced, if not a little on the cheap side. Though, I was looking at the higher-priced restaurants in the area. I didn't see anybody eating tapas so can't comment on the size of the servings or their value, though. I guess this place gets its reputation from the tapas and cocktails so I expect great things when I return (probably another 28 months away since baby #2 is just around the corner...) but as an Italian restaurant, it wasn't the greatest though it wasn't bad either.

My husband and I shared the beef tortellini from the menu (basically a boscaiola dish) and the fried gnocchi gamberi from the specials board. The tortellini was very nice, though it's hard to go wrong with boscaiola. My husband enjoyed the gnocchi very much which was a good thing because I pretty much forced him to swap our plates back after trying the harsh dry-spiced flavour of the gnocchi. It's not that it was awful - it just was not pleasant. And I eat everything!

Our dessert experience was similar, too. We both enjoyed the sticky date pudding however I found the butterscotch sauce too ... salty? If they had given us a decent serve of ice cream I could have left more of the sauce on my plate (or it would have cut through the saltiness) but the pudding would have been far too dry to eat without sauce and the ice cream did not stretch as far as the rather large serve of pudding did :(

My husband was not so fond of the tiramisu and while I found it was nice enough, I don't think it was prepared properly otherwise it was not made well enough in advance. We had the scrape off the soggy bottom as the coffee flavour was far too concentrated and that left us with a rather dry sponge layer that hadn't absorbed much moisture from the coffee or creamy layers so was not quite soft or that melt-in-your-mouth texture you want from a tiramisu. I must admit It was not even the best tiramisu I had eaten this fortnight, but all the flavours were there so maybe tonight was an off night for the kitchen?

The price was certainly right - the desserts came in at $8.50 and $9 and I remember looking at two other menus tonight that had sticky date pudding at $15. The pastas also came in under $20 each, though the gnocchi wasn't as large a serving as the tortellini, maybe because it was served with 5 prawns.

I will give Barenz another go as I see it has potential. If the menu was as pricey as the other places I had considered dining at on this occasion, I probably wouldn't give it another thought. Still, even if the standard menu disappoints again, I will return to try those tapas that I keep reading about...

Approximate cost: $20

Love it! Its great to finally have a licenced restaurant open later into the night in Camden. The coffee is good and the service is great; but I most enjoy eating a late dinner there, with a nice glass of wine in the outdoor seating. Its a real treat.

Approximate cost: $35