Farina 00 Pasta & Wine — Restaurant in Adelaide

We visited this restaurant on a Thursday evening. It wasn't particularly busy, but there are a few customers who are already seated and some eating. Unfortunately, the experience started off on the wrong foot from the moment we walked in. The staff member who greeted us seemed unsure of what he was doing, which immediately set a concerning tone.

After being seated, we were asked whether we preferred still or sparkling water but it never arrived. It took around 15–20 minutes before anyone came back to take our drink orders. At that point, I mentioned we were ready to order everything, including food, and also reminded them we were still waiting on our water.

We had several questions about the menu, particularly the set menu, but the waiter was unable to answer most of them. He explained that he was new, which is understandable to some extent but it highlighted a lack of proper training from management. If you’re working in hospitality, especially in a venue with premium pricing, staff should be well-informed and confident.

We placed our full order, including a bottle of wine. A few minutes later, the waiter returned to ask us to repeat our order, which was frustrating given how long we had already been waiting. Eventually, another staff member brought our wine but it wasn’t the one we had ordered. By then we were too hungry and tired to complain, so we accepted it just to move things along.

When the food arrived, we were quite shocked by the portion sizes. The prosciutto entrée was literally just slices of prosciutto on a plate for $25 asked for a bread to come with it which they charged for more. The pastas were $35 each, but came with just two small pieces of lamb and a few spoonfuls of pasta. While the flavors were actually quite good, the serving sizes and the overall value for money were disappointing.

I had high hopes for this restaurant, but the combination of poor service, undertrained staff, and overpriced dishes left us very dissatisfied. Would never...

Ordered the crab pasta which tasted extremely unpleasantly fishy. Expressed our concern to a waitress who went in and spoke to the chef, only to come and tell us that we could order something else off the menu, but since the meal was expensive, we would have to pay for both and the restaurant wouldn't cop it. The chef then came out to chat to us and pretty much implied that she couldn't take the meal off the bill just because I "didn't like it", to which I explained that crab pastas are literally my go to Italian meal and I'm not sending it back because I didn't like it, I'm sending it back because it TASTES OFF. They did finally take the meal off our bill but I've had over 10 years of hospitality experience in various types of restaurants and 3 years of restaurant management and I have never encountered a situation where I am confronted about a complaint and had a back and forth with the chef. The experience made us quite uncomfortable and dampened what we were hoping would be a great valentines day together. The rest of the food was great, but I don't think I'd ever go back to farina solely due to the embarrassing experience we had today. A crab pasta flavoured with a prawn bisque (basically heads and shells), with 2 good pieces of crab meat through it, in a tomato sauce isn't the most expensive thing at a restaurant. Your business is literally based around pleasing customers with food and service. If someone is unhappy with food, service can redeem the experience. Farina failed at both...

I was ready to leave a pretty harsh review based on our experience; but I think more than anything - this venue just needs work.

As other reviews have pointed out, the service is.. bizarre. It’s either non-existent or over the top, they all seem incredibly confused and it took 20 minutes to place our order after being seated. Of which, we stood there waiting to be seated for some time.

We placed our order, it took 30 minutes for some Arancini and Bread to arrive, and our mains pushed past 40 minutes. When food finally arrived, it was the wrong order, for the wrong table. Which we had to ask the table next to us and pass it along. When our food did arrive, let me say - the food wasn’t bad. The bread and oil paired incredibly well together (the oil was great), and the arancini was a good size albeit a little rich.

We didn’t have the time to wait for the mains to arrive, and upon asking our waitress for an update on how long it would take - she disappeared and never came back, tending to other tables.

That was the final straw and we decided to leave and go elsewhere. The lady on the front counter heard our concerns and in a gesture of goodwill, waived the existing bill for the two items we did receive.

I wouldn’t say this is a bad venue; it needs a lot of work, but has the potential to really live up past the negative reviews and deliver something of excellence. Although considering all Adelaide has to offer, it’s a hard choice to decide if they’re worth a...