K and I received some amazing Christmas presents from his family last year – a Blue Mountains accommodation voucher was one, and a RedBalloon voucher for a Champagne Breakfast for two at Darling Harbour (at Adria Rybar and Grill) was another. You can see the RedBalloon special on their website (NB: this is not an affiliate link, simply an FYI!).

Booking the champagne breakfast was really simple – we were able to validate our voucher on the RedBalloon website, and immediately register our preference for the day/time that we wanted to use it. We chose to use it on K’s birthday weekend, as a special treat, and were granted our first preference within 24 hours by the Adria team.

When we arrived that morning, we were shown to a prime spot on the edge of the terrace overlooking Darling Harbour with an excellent opportunity to people-watch on a Saturday morning. Our waiter was really helpful, explaining how the breakfast worked and taking our coffee and champagne orders.

When the two-tiered food platters came out, I may have groaned – how on earth were we going to eat all this food?! Never one to shy away from a food challenge though, K and I started to dig in…and in…and in…and in…we sat in the restaurant for nearly two hours as we endeavoured to pace ourselves and eat slowly but steadily!

Bottom Tier

• Eggs Benedict served on Toasted Turkish Bread with Smoked Salmon – one of the real highlights of the breakfast offerings, the hollandaise sauce was just beautiful, and the salmon was really fresh
• Fried Hash Browns – crispy and fried to perfection
• Gourmet Beef Sausages – nothing special, though they were ‘gourmet’ sausages, you can find much of the same product at any random cafe you visit
• Grilled Bacon – I prefer my bacon to be extra crispy, so the light frying of this bacon was disappointing
• Sauteed Mushrooms – firm and full of flavour

Top Tier

• Fresh Seasonal Assorted Fruits – fantastically fresh and really helped to cleanse one’s palate after the heavier options on the bottom tier
• Homemade Croissants – lightly toasted and wonderfully flaky
• Assorted Pastries – we had berry friands the morning that we went, though I think this changes every day. Unfortunately they were nothing too spectacular!
• Traditional Homemade Crepes with Maple Syrup and Mixed Berry Compote – unfortunately the crepes were cold by the time I got around to them, but the mixed berry compote was delightful!

Our champagne breakfast experience at Adria was very much one of over consumption – I definitely wouldn’t recommend it for anyone with a small appetite.

It was also a strange experience to have at Adria – from what I understand its usual offering tends towards Mediterranean tastes, as opposed to a fairly standard cafe-style breakfast. While it was evident that their expertise lay in avenues other than breakfast food, it’s still a special enough experience to warrant considering purchasing the RedBalloon gift for older couples – parents, in-laws, and other food lovers in the family.

Overall, I rate Adria Rybar and Grill and their Champagne Breakfast experience a 7 out of 10.