Prezzo — Restaurant in Adelaide

What was meant to be a special birthday dinner with friends, turned into a drawn-out and frustrating experience that took weeks to resolve, and the way it was handled was just as disappointing as the billing errors themselves. We waited nearly two hours for food, despite the restaurant being mostly empty. I was understanding on the night, I didn’t push or complain at the time as I know hospitality can be busy on weekends. But the delay was excessive. Unfortunately, the issues didn’t end there. After dinner, I was charged $223.50, even though I only ordered 1 pasta and three drinks. I assumed maybe a few forgotten items from the group had been added to the final bill, but even allowing for that, the total still didn’t make sense. The next day, I contacted the owner, Izzi, and asked for receipts from our table. After receiving no response, I followed up and requested a copy of each individual transaction. But I was told because the bill was split, only the final transaction could be tracked, which I found hard to believe both for legal and practical reasons. I respectfully questioned this, and to my surprise Izzi sent me the receipts, confirming he had them all along!

After comparing the receipts and against the bank statements, I found multiple issues: Duplicate charges — one guest’s payment was also included on my bill. Incorrect drink quantity — I was charged for drinks I didn’t order. Beer overcharge — prices were inconsistent across receipts. A missing receipt — one payment was never itemised. Lack of itemisation — which created confusion for guests trying to check what they paid for. Receipt mismatches — none of the receipt totals aligned cleanly with the charges on the bank statements.

I laid everything out clearly, with screenshots and breakdowns to support my claims, and politely requested a refund of the overcharges. In response, I received vague excuses and repeated deflections that failed to address my actual concerns. At one point, the owner tried to redirect the conversation commenting that “one of the guys just kept ordering drinks” and even mocked my refund request by sending a photo of his staff member “scrutinising” the receipts, which came across as unnecessary and unprofessional. After two weeks of back and forth, Izzi finally acknowledged there had been an overcharge. But even then, the refund was still delayed and only processed after another follow-up from me days later. To top it off, the owner publicly responded to my friend’s review in a dismissive and defensive tone, further proving a pattern of avoiding accountability and dismissing feedback instead of learning from it. After reading more reviews, it’s clear this behaviour is not an isolated case.

I genuinely believe in giving businesses the benefit of the doubt and treating hospitality staff with respect. I was polite, patient and helpful throughout our email exchanges because I just wanted to resolve the issue and move on. But the way this was handled was unacceptable. As a business owner, being open to constructive criticism and feedback, even when it’s critical, is a fundamental responsibility. Not all critical feedback is personal, some offer opportunity to grow and improve. Unfortunately, my experience in the end was stressful, disappointing, and far more work than any customer should have to do, especially after what was meant to be a celebratory dinner. I won’t be returning, and I don’t recommend this venue to anyone who values transparency or...

Utterly disappointed by the behaviour of the owner on Friday night. His hostile actions ruined a nice night out with the family. I left absolutely frustrated by the experience and don't even want to recount the details of the night. Just writing this review so any other person who encounters such hostility... you're not alone.

Edit: Seeing the owner wants to call me names. I'll add context. We bought gift cards from Prezzo's website. Which we we notified the waiter prior to dining that we intended to use. We showed him on our phone. When we were waiting to order the owner came over and told us he didn't accept vouchers. Now one would think, if you purchased vouchers directly from a resturant website, they would honor it. No. He didn't even look at it or any of the details. Just flat out said he doesn't do vouchers. What my expectation would have been is firstly an apology and possibly instructions on how to get a refund. Nothing was offered. Trying to figure what was wrong led to very slow progress as we struggled to get words in. During conversation he spoke about unrelated matters and didn't stick to the facts that mattered. I.e. He told us to look how his website doesn't sell vouchers. (Currently doesn't mean he hasn't previously). He eventually acknowledged he did sell vouchers but they became too hard to manage and some experience of being scammed. He even told us that last time he accepted the voucher because he felt sorry for us. I got pretty annoyed at this point. I didn't need sympathy, we had already paid him! How else would we got the voucher. I wanted to correct him and he told me not to cut him off. So after even more talking he eventually said he'd give us a refund. Then as we were going to get our refund and leave, he changes his mind and tells us to dine at the restaurant. Now this was pretty frustrating. After all this experience, I had to sit down and eat a meal there to get any value from the money we had already spent. I ate and then left trying to contain the frustration of the events that had occurred.

To the owner please read the ACCC site about the rules around gift vouchers. Take some accountability for the actions you have made. Notify other potential customers who have bought gift cards on their options on how to get their refunds. You had all the information to validate our information we provided you and we were willing to wait for you to do so.

Please stop with the name calling, it doesn't lead anywhere. Users can still filter by other 1 star reviews of your business to judge if my review has some merit. And for the record you didn't tell us that when you honoured the first voucher. Just because you say it doesn't...

Upon entering the establishment the decor and style fit The description of a high-end restaurant.

When ordering and receiving our bottle of wine, we were not asked if we wanted to taste the wine, rather the wine was poured for us without even asking who would be indulging, the waiter also chose to serve the male guests first rather than the female ones.

We chose to order an antipasto sharing platter as our entree, and for reasons unknown this particular course took 20 minutes to come out. We were extremely disappointed as the platter only included some rolled up cold meats, cheese, and some roasted vegetables, bread was included but only when we asked the waiter for it. After eating a rather simplistic and very easy to prepare entree we moved onto our mains.

I had ordered the “Risotto zucca e farro” (Risotto with pumpkin & pearl barley), risotto is meant to be slightly al dente, but mine came out undercooked, and was bathing in a lukewarm water, rather than being creamy in texture. There was little to no pumpkin and the dish was overall flavourless and bland.

Another person in my group had ordered “Pappardelle ragu di agnello” (Home made pappardelle pasta with lamb ragou), which came out with grey chunks of lamb (which were flavourless), and instead of a rich flavourful sauce, the same sort of watery sheen from the risotto seemed to accompany it. The pasta could very easily be compared to a cheap “heat-up microwave meal”, lacking any depth of flavour or integrity.

The final dish that was served for main was a pizza. The dough was under cooked and soggy. Although the ingredients were of a high calibre, they did not make up for the fact that the pizza dough was falling apart.

We chose to skip dessert due to our experience with the mains.

We were all thoroughly unimpressed with a restaurant that was recommended to us as “fine dining”, but we found that only trait that it encompassed was the decor.

We chose not to speak to management and left upon paying the bill to...