ela at Hotel Alba — Restaurant in Adelaide

We stayed at the Alba, rooms are comfortable, clean and refurbished. Reception staff are welcoming and attentive. The hotel lobby had a fireplace but it was never functioning would have been nice on the cooler nights. The refurb of the bar and dining and pool area is wonderful, the little gym has a good set of dumbbells thank you 🙏🏻tastefully designed and functionally. We had happy hour the cocktails were good and the bar staff efficient. The breakfast buffet was awesome plenty to choose from and replenished quickly. Floor staff - both breakfast and dinner seemed to be short staffed. Breakfast the lovely manager was greeting, seating and taking coffee orders even when there was a line up possibly another staff member could have taken the order. While she attended to the front desk. Tables were cleared efficiently and reset. Dinner- the staff at dinner were practically none existent the menu was good and the food exceptional. Possibly short staffed we ate twice there on our stay, took ages to be seated, to take an order, for the bread to come to the table, upselling drinks, table settings need to ask for bread plates. Short staffed? Or staff that are in the wrong industry. It’s hard to employ the right people I know! But that was the only let down of the entire stay. Food 100% made up for it!...

Went to Ela this Thursday for the 30pp Pasta and Wine Promo night. Left paying $88. The restaurant itself was gorgeous, the ambience, the lighting and tables - no complaints. We ordered a Pinot Grigio, riesling + Gnocci and the Spinach and Ricotta Cannelloni. Throughout the booking we had a total of three different waiters serve us, which is fine if the food and wine brought out was correct to our order, which unfortunately wasn’t. We were served the incorrect wines initially, and once the correct wines were brought out, the waiter informed us that these wines weren’t part of the promo (which would’ve been great to know beforehand). We only ordered the cheapest wines on there as well 😂

Then the food came out and we were served 2 x gnocchi’s which was wrong as well. Had to wait for the correct order to be remade.

The food was amazing. Very filling, great flavour and honestly one of the best Cannelloni I’ve ever had. And the gnocchi was elite too. No complaints with the wines either.

But we both left that restaurant feeling a little scammed. It isn’t a huge amount, but that service unfortunately ruined the experience for us.

Once again, amazing food, good ambience, very...

My experience at ela was sadly a little disappointing. I waited a long time to be served by staff (over 20 min). Later, when I was served the bottle of sparkling water, it was just kind of plonked there and I had to pour it into the glass myself. Once my order was finally taken, it was then still quite a wait. The staff apologised when bringing my food, saying it is a busy night. And while there were certainly some diners, it was nowhere near full capacity based on the number of empty tables. There isn’t enough staff on in that case.

The food itself was not bad, although again, somewhat disappointing. The fries were meant to have truffle salt but I detected no truffle at all. The confit duck was fairly tasty but the sauce was a bit too sweet. To be honest, for this price, I expect more.

Overall not terrible but it wouldn’t come as a recommendation from me, unfortunately. For the price category, the little details like prompt service, filling of your glass, checking in - these...