Zayt & Zaatar- est 2016 (West Lakes) — Restaurant in Adelaide

We wouldn't normally leave a bad review, but we are astounded at the service this business provided on the weekend. After giving the manager plenty of polite feedback and an opportunity to fix the issue on the night, to no avail, we have no choice but to leave feedback here.

My partner and I go to good restaurants regularly, and happily pay for quality food and experiences. When we are happy with a business we tell others, and return often with extra friends. My partner had gone to Zayt and Zaatar recently for a work function and thought the food was good, so he took me there on Friday night. He was thinking of bringing his employees soon for a big group meal also.

We were pleased to find the restaurant mostly empty, while the Italian restaurant next door was full to the brim, as we had a movie to get to so we figured we'd get quick service. The manager came and took our order, he was friendly, explained the meals to us, we ordered an Entree of dips and two mains, and he repeated the order to confirm.

A while after ordering, my partner received his main, no Entree had come out. He started to eat as he didn't want it to get cold, we assumed more food would arrive soon after. But nothing did. We called the waitress over after a while to ask where my meal and Entree were, she said she'd go and check. A long while passed, the waitress had come out to wipe tables, but had not come back over to us, my partner had nearly finished his meal by then. We called her over again and she said she'd checked and we hadn't ordered anything but a meal for my partner. I felt a bit annoyed that she hadn't come back to let us know, and how she didn't realise that must be a mistake considering we were asking is beyond us!

We said that wasn't true, and we'd like the rest of our food. She said she'd organise that and went to get the iPad to take our order once more. She was fiddling behind the counter for a while and hadn't come back to take our order yet, I was starving by then, so we went up to pay as we'd decided to go elsewhere now. Without any apology she put her iPad down, said 'ok' with a smile, and went to charge us. So we asked for the manager.

We explained the situation to the manager, explaining we can understand how hard it is to find good staff but he needed to be told what had happened. He apologised saying he'd messed up our order, and he'd give me my meal free if we sat back down. So we did, however the meal brought out wasn't what I'd ordered. I ate some of it anyway without complaining because after all it was going to be free. When we went to pay however, we found that he'd charged us for my meal anyway. (Correction: We were contacted by the manager after this review who told us that the $79- charge was in fact for one meal, the salad with the meal, and the two bottles of water we'd consumed). Not wanting to ruin our Friday night with an argument we left and went next door to get more food. After all, we weren't there for a free meal, we just wanted good service and food.

Despite enjoying the food, we are so astounded at the lack of care and service, so I don't think we will be returning again.

To the manager, I notice in your responses for bad feedback that you say a half hearted apology, then an excuse, and make no attempt to win your customer back or rectify the situation. If you are just going to throw empty words at me for this review, please don't bother to respond. If you aren't interested enough in your customers or business to be genuinely concerned about feedback, and aren't interested in taking any measures to rectify the situation, then your lack of care in your response only damages your...

I do not go out to eat often, it is why, I want to be impressed when I do. We were going to try the Zayt & Zaatar modern Lebanese restaurant at Campbeltown, because driving past, there are always well dressed folks outside having a good time. Sure enough, it was booked out on a Saturday, but the West Lakes one had some free tables.

For entree we were recommended Kibbe, flavoursome meat rolled in lovely wheat and pine nuts shell. Honestly, I could just eat that, it was delightfully flavoursome.

I usually have a Barramundi, a premium Australian fish, so I have a history of having good Barra. A lovely gentelman by the name of Nikolai served us, and he recommended the Barramundi Tajin, oven baked slathered in tahini based sause garnished with cashews, served on a bed of fried Lebanese bread. The fish was a delight, melting in my mouth, so I could barely tell what is the fish and what is the sauce. Each mouthful was a core memory forming delight. The serving was generous too, by the end, I could barely eat any more (and I am a big person). My companion, had the Boneless Charcoaled Chicken and it was juicy and flavoursome. This was a premium meal, eaten in a modern, cosmopolitan atmosphere, with delighfrul staff serving us. I was grooving to the music, which was quiet enough to converse, but audiable enough to groove to (it was a great mix of Arabic/Eastern Dance and Chill).

As an extra bonus, we were prividged to meet Amal, the Chef... and Mum of the two blokes who run the restaurant. What a lovely and skilled lady. Turns out, the Father is the Chef at Campbelltown and the Mum at West Lakes. Trully, a home cooked meal a mum would make... served in a Cosmopolitan, high class restaurant. Next time we entartain out of town guests, we will bring them to Zayt & Zaatar. A delight for the senses. I am so happy this restaurant is in my town. Many happy returns hopefuly! Thank you Amal, Nikolai and the other lovely staff. You turned and ordinary Saturday into...

So disappointed! We’re a group of friends that always go to the Campbeltown unit, which has amazing food and service, but today we thought would be nice to try the new one at West Lakes, specially because it was much closer to us. It was so frustrating. the waitress took so long to take the orders for drinks and food, didn’t come to the table to check if we need something and neither bring water (that we had to end up getting up to pick up at the bar). After a long wait for food, they started to bring the dips without the bread which took a while to come and when we asked for it they didn’t send enough for 7ppl. We ordered the Tripoli banquet but they ran out a few items from the banquet and swap for another items from the Junieh banquet which we don’t like, specially because some of them are pretty spicy, and only let us know they were swapping after the food start coming, not before we place the order like it supposed to. Besides the mixed skewers had more chicken than lamb/beef, some of the chicken were raw. In the end, when we asked for the bill, they forgot to bring and also charged us $5 more each. At the end, only after we complained about the price, the guy gave us a discount at the bill and apologised. We weren’t happy with food and service and unfortunately won’t go back, which is sad because the environment is really cool and is much...