Geckos Cafe

The food was great, the price was good too. Though we had to wait more than 40 minutes. I understand it was very busy, but still. The staff was friendly. They gave us complimentary chips while we were waiting for our food. The washrooms were clean. The atmosphere was very relaxed and cool.

☕ Geckos Café at Desert Gardens Resort is a solid pick for a meal in Uluṟu. The coffee is excellent, and the pasta hits the mark—comforting and flavorful. Just keep in mind, prices reflect the remote location, so it’s not exactly budget dining. Still, for a tasty bite in the heart of the Red Centre, it’s a convenient and satisfying option.

We ordered for lunch the bruschetta and pizzas (geckos). The bruschetta was small and the bread was just two small bites toasted. The pizzas were ok, nothing incredible. The staff was nice, and we thought the spritz didn’t have any prosecco at all. Price a bit high.

Italian restaurant in yulara, definitely not good italian, the arancini were mush inside like store bought and deep fried and the chips were boring and plain. The mains were okay but the carbonara was just a little bland and average. Also expensive at $32 for a carbonara with very little protein and veg. The place is only busy because there is only 3 options for food at yulara apart from the $102 buffet

Shocked by being asked ( by an Asian lady) to pay before eating! I went to the counter and the lady behind counter told me to pay afterwards. At the same time I noticed about others who were not being asked to pay beforehand. I have to say that the pizza was not bad.

For lunch, I ordered their festive pasta - gnocchi with smoked ham and olives - alongside a side of fries. Both dishes were generously portioned and freshly prepared. The gnocchi was flavourful, though it could have used more ham and olives. The fries, which turned out to be thick-cut chips, were crispy but disappointingly didn’t come with the smoked tomato chutney per the menu. Service was prompt, and coffee was quite good.

Breakfast food was great. Service was average at best. The server was disinterested and shuffled around like they would rather be elsewhere. People that came after us were served first and we were not given water until after ordering. Dinner was busy but definitely manageable. Pizza base was undercooked. The top was given enough time to melt the cheese, you would never burn your mouth on the food! Overall. Above premium prices, poor service and food on a sliding scale. There are better places to eat in the precinct at similar prices.

Service with a smile? No. SERVICE WITH A SCOWL. Great food, reasonable prices considering they’re in the middle of nowhere. The problem here is their service, it’s absolutely garbage. The servers have sour puss looks on their faces, they DON’T want to be there serving/working while customers are having fun on holiday. Takes them forever to take your order, once order is placed, some random person, not YOUR server, will bring you your food in some order, maybe they’ll bring all the food for the whole table together, maybe there will be 15 minutes before everyone has their food, meanwhile, the person who gets their food first, their food is now cold. After they’ve dropped off your food, they couldn’t care less about you, ESPECIALLY if you didn’t order any alcohol. People who order alcohol DEFINITELY get better service with the servers going back to their tables over and over again. The food is good, but you WILL be treated like cattle being fed in a trough. What a shame, how embarrassing for the owners. Read other reviews, the service is definitely an issue.

It's now a sit down and you order from your table but you pay for the food upfront (mire later on this drawback). They bring the food to you. The first day, the four cheese thin crust pizza was good but hardly a smidge of blue cheese. The Rock Cheeseburger double patties were decent size & very tasty & juicy. Their crispy fries and fresh salad was a plus. Note the burger patty felt more like a processed sausage. The 2nd day eating there we ordered kid's fish n chips: the fish was 3-inch long, 1-inch diameter, in a light crispy batter served with good portion of fresh salad w dressing, & a side of crispy fries. The kid's tenderloin beef steak was bit burnt. Came with decent portion of steamed veggie. The kid's burger patty did not taste like the adult patty. The avocado chicken sandwich toast was bland. It had a pale green spread that was meant to be the avocado but it had a sour taste and mashed, rather than sliced avocados. Lastly their soup of the day was "sweet potato soup". With a very thin consistency, no sweet potato taste, it was also masked with pepper, perhaps thickened with cornstarch. We each tasted a pea size drop of soup to confirm the awful state. Beware - No refunds for bad food. Appearing to have never been confronted with a request for money back, the perplexed manager did some back and forth with the chef. Finally they agreed a food swap. Manager said that they have never done refunds before. That day's food is bad here. 4 out of 5 dishes were poorly done in taste - the soup was recognizable as "sweet potato soup"! Service was fine on both days. Food came out fast. 2 stars for the first day's good picks, 1 star for the service. No stars for 2nd day's food. The bathrooms were well maintained.

It's order and pick up by yourself, don't expect much service, so you won't be disappointed. We ordered seafood pizza and a meat pizza, plus salads to share among 4 of us. Both pizzas turned out pretty good, crusts were very thin, I'd prefer the thick crust better, that's the only complaint I have. I did not try salad, but my wife said it's surprisingly fresh.

I thought it was weird that you wait to be seated even though there is no table service, you order food at one counter and drinks at another counter and pick both up yourself when ready... but they don't tell you this so we were sitting at our table for a few minutes until we realized no one was coming to take our order and got up and asked. Food was actually quite good (thus 4 stars despite odd service). I recommend the fish and chips. Kids size pizzas were quite large. Prices are comparable to other area restaurants (of which there are few!)

Not much for service, but the food is good. The poached eggs were overcooked, but I was fine with it. if you want runny yolks, make sure to let them know.

We ate at Gecko's several times during our stay at Ayers Rock Resort area. Admittedly there are few choices in the area, but we were pleasantly surprised by Gecko's...good food, great ingredients, friendly and efficient service, and an overall nice dining experience. We tried them for lunch and dinner and particularly enjoyed their pizzas (loved their Hawaiian and Kangaroo/Emu meat pizzas, pasta, chicken sandwich and french fries. Our kids loved their meals...food was tasty...came relatively quickly and the restaurant was cozy. A bit pricey for what it was, but kind of what you would expect when you are "captive" at a unique location in a National Park. Worth a try...and better than a couple of the other restaurants on property.

Nicer ingredients than typical fast food or slightly less fast food, but not great, and certainly not worth the prices anywhere apart from the middle of the desert, where the alternatives are no better. Meh is about all I can say. The staff were friendly and were the best part. Otherwise, the food was blah and bland. The pizza was supposed to have real mozzarella but it didn't look like it, and I had to throw in lots of crushed pepper to get any flavor, and I had to ask for that specially. The lamb ragu had even less flavor, and it had real pieces of lamb, although it tasted and felt stewed, which is not a good thing. They were out of kangaroo meat when I was there, which was a bummer. The prices are about what you'd expect for a national park, over $20 per person for a meal, possibly well over.

We ate here several times over a week long visit in early June 2019. Breakfast was big, filling and yummy. Dinner was awesome. We all got something different and shared. Pasta dish, salad and soup, Croc ribs.. gnocchi dish. A couple beers and a bottle of wine between 4 people. Folks on here keep b****ing about the prices...Come on, after the exchange it is only about $15-22US per entree at dinner. That is really pretty reasonable especially how "in the middle of nowhere" it is. And yes, you pay at the counter usually and they give you a number, and bring to your table when it is ready. Some places you would pay and they would give you a little buzzer. When it buzzes you go and get your food. They did that most EVERYWHERE we went in Australia. I found it to be enormously efficient. Sure, you aren't being babied while sitting at your table but they also don't expect tips so look at the big picture.

Geckos has more options than the other available places, but it's definitely overpriced. I got the Mediterranean pearl cous cous salad for lunch (A$18), and it was actually really good. For breakfast, they only have 1 dairy-free option - the panna cotta. They have 5 gluten free or gluten-free available options for breakfast. Overall I wasn't that impressed given the price, but it's food, and it's some of the only options you have here.

There are not many places to eat out in the Ayers Rock Resort area. This was the simple cafe in the shopping area. Standard pizza's, salad, and burgers. We shared the calamari salad and a pizza. The calamari was deep fried and the greens were scare on the plate. This was more of a calamari dish than salad. I found the calamari to be too oily and not lightly fried. The pizza was OK, I think we ordered one with pepperoni. The burgers looked large like American size burgers to our surprise. Maybe we should have ordered that to share than the oily calamari.

Located at the resort town square (mall) is this pretty cosy restaurant. Saw that they have the kangaroo meat and emu meat on the pizzas and I decided to dine in on the first day of my stay in Ayers Rock Resort area. Was seated pretty quickly and as the servers poured the water on the glasses , we told him that we were ready to order and hence we ordered the outback pizza. We arrived at 6pm (when it opens for dinner) and customers started to stroll in. Our pizza was the first to come and as soon as it comes, more people ordered pizzas. Portion wise it was pretty big for a thin crust pizza and we got full at the third slice but we decided to eat the last piece anyways. The pizza base was pretty crispy. The tomato sauce wasn't that flavorful. But the meats were cooked in the right temperature giving it a balanced chewiness and juiciness. Unfortunately the meats (cubes - kangaroo, slices - emu) were not spreads out in the same portion. But at least we got to try it out. It is definitely pricy but where else I can find outback related meats. Service was good as well and there are desserts that you can try out as well if you have room for it :)

Decent mid-tier food option while in Uluru. Ate here for lunch twice. Not the largest portion sizes, but all things considered, they were a-ok.

I only wish we had found Gecko's sooner! Nice place, lots of food options, also a Full Bar! I selected one of the specials lasagna. Impressive in size and taste, it was delish. My friend ordered the chicken pot pie, which was so good! We shared the Carrot Cake, I will say deserts aren't as big as the meals. This is self serve, like many of the restaurants you order and pick up at the window. Not a problem.

Your choices of eating is rather limited in this part of Oz, but I found Geckos to be very fast and friendly. You go up to the counter and put in your order, go back to your table and they bring the food to you. We ordered one of the pizzas and a salad for a quick lunch and it was quite good. Since it's "you get what you get out here", I was expecting something below mediocre, but this place was actually pretty good.

As far as National Park restaurants go, Geckos cafe is good at best. It has a quick service format, where you are seated with menus, then you go up to a counter to order or to the bar, and they give you a buzzer, like the ones restaurants give you when you are waiting for a table. The menu consists of salads, pizzas, pastas, and burgers. There is a pizza with with emu and 'roo strips but the pizzas did not look that good. We ended up ordering two salads that had a basil dressing, hard feta cheese, and pumpkin. The baby greens mix was actually really fresh, for coming in on a road train, but it wasn't tossed well and the dressing was sorta blah. The texture of the pumpkin was sorta weird, since it was mushy and was made more mushy when it was tossed. The one thing I liked was the bottle of spring water on each table that comes from a spring right there in Uluru that has a very minerally flavor.

We had the kangaroo burger, wagyu burger and the cheese pizza. The wagyu burger was basically a frozen burger. The meat was questionably not beef. I have no idea who approved this type of meat as wagyu level. The meat tasted really weird. The kanagroo burger was just ok. It also felt like it was frozen. we also had the margarita pizza. That came out like a cheap frozen pizza you can get from the super market except this pizza was 25 dollars. It tastes worst than the pizzas they served you in school in the states. I would skip this place next time the quality is just not there.

I had dinner here the other night and I left very full and satisfied. It's been given a very basic outlay but it suits the area. The service was awesome! We were constantly topped up with our drinks and they were very observant to realise when you wanted to order or if you needed more time. The food was very good, I order the porterhouse steak which was perfectly cooked to the medium rare that I requested. The mushroom sauce that accompanied it was yum, not the best but good. The mashed potatoes was delicious! After the garlic bread pizza I left satisfied and extremely full! This was a great feed, for a reasonable price. The best thing is they no what they can do and they do it well!

Service: 3/5 Food: 4/5 Money: 4/5 Environment: 4/5 It is a great place to eat consider you are in the desert. The ribs was nice. The fish was a little bit over cooked. But was ok. Service was average.

Pretty average stuff here. Not bad, but not great. Kids can probably share the kids pizza. It's easily too much for any one 10 year old. The bar at Sails has a better menu/food.

Had a quick and satisfying meal here before hurrying out to see the sunset. Service was quick, and the food was better than I expected. Had a soup, salad, and garlic pizza.

We ate here after returning from sunset viewing. We hadn't made any reservations that evening and wanted something fairly quick. We weren't expecting much but we're pleasantly surprised. I had a Hawaiian pizza which hit the spot - the toppings were great, crust was very thin which I like but it was nothing to write home about. Husband had the crocodile ribs which he enjoyed and kids liked their pasta and pizza. Ice cream was included with their meal and kids under 3 eat free. It is counter service for ordering and you get a buzzer and collect your food when ready. We all left satisfied

Nice food but stay away from the pizza as it is just an oil bath. In the dishes I had, I found the chefs are very fond of using a lot of oil.

Each of our pastas cost $20-25 and were completely underwhelming. I could have fed my entire family for 1/4 of the price. They were out of pizzas and most salads the night we went. I'm still distraught that we spent so much money at this restaurant...really disappointing experience.

Relatively cheaper option for dinner on the resort. Pizza, hamburgers, pasta and salads. Will run about $20+ per person. Self serve, you order food at the counter and get a buzzer to take to your table. Buzzer rings and you pick your food up at the pass. Drinks are ordered separately at the bar. Food was again average, nothing to write home about but gets the job done.

Service poor. Food average at best. Friends nephew had metal in his pasta no apology. Our meals came out 10 minutes after the others. Had to ask for the kids dessert to come to table. Not good enough

This is in the town center. There is table service, but poor service. We got better service from a trainee who was assigned to a different table than our server. Table water costs at this restaurant! Other restaurants on the resort, it is included. They were out of kangaroo burger. The pizzas were ok, a nice large size. We only ate once here.