Taverna Greek Psistaria — Restaurant in Adelaide

The Extremely Good and the Quite Annoying.

There were five of us for a Sunday lunch and I was pretty excited to eat here as I had passed it many times and the food smells were always amazing. Let me get the irritating 😠 out of the way up front. I had brought a bottle of fine wine to share with my friends because, quite frankly, very few Adelaide restaurants other than the high end ones carry an extensive wine list of carefully aged wines. This restaurant is no exception with the usual brief list of young red wine, much too young for drinking in my opinion. Nonetheless when I enquired about my BYO bottle and the associated corkage I was informed abruptly that BYO was not allowed in their restaurant. This was a first for me, I’ve never been refused before and I’m always relatively happy to accept the corkage hit. Now the SA Liquor Licensing Act does have provision for the licensee to refuse BYO without any listed reasons for doing so, so this restaurant is well within their legal rights to start off my lunch time by annoying the customers and getting them offside. Wouldn’t have thought that was a smart business practice though as it usually results in customers going home writing reviews like this one!! So I was forced to settle for a glass of ordinary, young, overpriced red wine not of my choosing. Did I mention overpriced? When will restaurants understand that they are there to prepare delicious food and not to be wine stores? $15 for a small pour which is normally $11-12 in other restaurants? That’s just plain price gouging. So after that the food would need to be good. Fortunately it was. We ordered the Lamb Shoulder, Mixed Souvlaki, Whitebait and Aggeli (mixed seafood) and a Santorini Salad. The serves were massive and certainly plenty for the most hungry of lunch eaters. In addition everyone was impressed with the quality of their meals. The lamb shoulder was moist, well cooked with balanced flavours. And the potatoes were great and the pita bread the best I’ve tasted! No room for desserts, but we ordered Greek Coffees and a long black because I’m always unexcited by Greek Coffee. Everybody was unimpressed with the Greek Coffee, the long black also nothing special. How do I rate the overall experience? If you’re not the sort who does BYO, and don’t mind average, overpriced wine, the meals are excellent and good value and I would heartily recommend this place. But for me the flat refusal of BYO with no reasons means I will not. There are lots of other Greek restaurants and other restaurants in Adelaide and as a paying customer I expect my happiness to be put ahead of...

Been here previously around the start of the year and was excellent above expectations , went the other night , prices have increased and way to expensive for what I received , would be happy to pay top dollar if the food was up to scratch but it is far from it, where do I start My girlfriend received undercook raw chicken skewers! , the calamari was overcooked but was okay atleast , and the staff were fairly poor, I was hoping for a better out come but was not as expected , they did take away the chicken and served as a new serving but after seeing the first time it was raw it was a complete put off many know raw chicken it’s not a good sight, it’s a shame cause you expect to have the best with the prices they charge which is Absurd. The staff need more training lack of responsiveness and really poor service , , they gave us the wrong bill in the end which they messed up by a lot as they had no record of what we ate so being a good human beings as anyone would we kindly explain what we got to this young waitress. In the end when we received our proper bill I spoke to another worker there telling them I was no impressed with the service and food quality I would think they would not charge us for the meal they served raw or atleast given us a discount on the bill but all they Said was sorry not much we can do about this then finishing with hope yous come back , I respect them apologising, I then paid and walked out , not sure if they just had a bad night but I am put off going back there for a while after this unpleasant experience , I know it’s one time this has happened to me and reading other reviews most people love the food which I did when I first tried this restaurant but when going to a supposedly Quality restaurant like this you expect abit more from them , anyways I thought I’d share my honest opinions with...

WELL, WELL, it seems things can change for the better as our last visit left a bit to be desired, this establishment went up a notch in our estimation. The service was prompt & efficient, the father & son floor staff exceeded our expectation & we appreciated their good & attentive service. Food was very good & the main meals were very generous & we struggled to consume the entire offering, a most enjoyable Sunday. I would now give 4 stars compared to the previous 3 & would consider coming back, definitely worth a punt. Cheers.

This taverna has a good reputation & that is exactly how I would describe it, good & about 3 stars. It's a Sunday & we had a large group booking for lunch, the staff were okay, but lacked genuine warmth & appeared to be going through the motions. A gregarious host would lend themselves perfectly in a Greek taverna. The decor was also okay, but at no time was there a sense of a little piece of Greece in the setting. Blue & white tiles & the odd Greek print upon the wall did not suffice. The prices were not cheap, but the servings were reasonable, though most on offering I thought was over cooked & a tad dry. The waiting time was acceptable & you would think the waitresses would know exactly who ordered what & deliver a meal to the right customer without having to ask. The sweets were of a good quality. I cannot believe a Greek taverna stuffed up a Greek coffee, it was luke warm & way too much coffee. The cappuccino didn't fare much better & spoilt an otherwise good afternoon. Still, it was a good afternoon, we enjoyed the experience, but none of us would come...