La Tabella Italian — Restaurant in Airlie Beach

TERRIBLE! Absolutely terrible! My wife ordered the fish from the specials board & I ordered Carbonara with a Garlic Bread. I asked for the Garlic Bread to come with the Carbonara. . . A short time later & I sensed it was wrong, but the Garlic Bread arrived. I told the young waitress that I'd ordered the Garlic Bread to accompany the Carbonara & she said "YES, ITS JUST COMING, LET ME GO & CHECK & GET BACK TO YOU" The Garlic Bread then sat on the able for 10 minutes under the ceiling fan going cold & the waitress never came back. Then after it became obvious the young waitress was lying, the main meals were not coming & she wasn't checking & had no intention of coming back I spoke with the waiter Max who accepted it was his fault as he'd ordered it as a starter dish not to accompany the Carbonara, Max took away the now cold Garlic Bread & said he would re-order it to come with the main meals. After a wait. . The same young waitress then brought our main meals & I challenged her regarding her previous statement that the main meals were coming with the Garlic Bread. She said "NO SORRY BUT THE GARLIC BREAD IS COMING NOW, LET ME CHECK FOR YOU". . . You guessed it, the same waitress disappeared didn't check & never came back so now the Carbonara sits under the ceiling fan going cold waiting for a lying waitress to return or maybe the Garlic Bread to turn up. . . You guessed it, the lying waitress never returned, the Carbonara goes cold & after asking another waitress what's going on who also says she'll go & check. . We wait, see the second waitress come out of the main building onto the pavement area make no attempt to come back to us & then go off again. . We've now had enough & get up from the table to leave. explain what's gone wrong & then the Garlic Bread turns up! If this was a circus I'd be laughing but it's a restaurant or supposed to be! The young waitress I'd sack instantly, I've worked in customer service & the last thing a customer wants is promises of action & no result! Don't tell me something is happening that clearly isn't & don't tell me you will check & get back to me only to disappear & not return & if the chef can't prepare 3 items to come out to the same table at the same time there's a big problem. ABSOLUTELY SHOCKING & A COMPLETE WASTE OF OUR TIME BOOKING & ATTENDING FOR DINNER! I wouldn't come back if...

We’re travelling up the coast and stopped in Airlie for dinner, unfortunately this was one of the worst service experiences I’ve ever had.

I booked a 7pm outdoor table. When we arrived, the host seemed visibly annoyed with us from the moment we walked in. He seated us at the furthest table, basically on a driveway with cars passing just centimetres away all night. Then he left us sitting for 15 minutes - no water, no menus, no acknowledgment - even while he cleaned the table next to us and seated several other groups, giving them menus and water straight away. We were completely ignored.

When a waitress finally came, she asked “Do you have menus?” We explained we’d been given nothing, and only then did she bring water and menus. Another 15 minutes passed before anyone took our order, so by that point we’d been there half an hour with no drinks or food.

We ordered an entrée (which was lovely), two pastas, and specifically the La Tabella Salad (listed under Starters) to come with our mains — not the generic side salad. I pointed it out on the menu and asked if we could get the starter with mains and the waitress said “Yes of course, you can have whatever you’d like”. When our mains arrived, the salad didn’t. After waiting and trying to get anyone’s attention, I had to interrupt the waitress as she reset the table beside us. She disappeared, and 10 minutes later the side salad was brought out instead of the one we’d clearly ordered. When I asked, she said she didn’t know there was more than one salad on the menu.

By this time we’d nearly finished our mains. We didn’t touch the side salad, but it was still charged on the bill. Drinks were never offered again once we’d finished ours.

When my partner went to pay, he politely told the host the food was good but the service was terrible and we never got the salad we ordered. The host just said “So sorry about that” and pushed the EFTPOS machine towards him. No offer to fix the bill, no genuine apology.

We spent $150 for two pastas, an entrée, and a salad we didn’t order or eat. The food itself was tasty, but the service was appalling from start to finish - dismissive, inattentive, and outright rude. I’ve worked in hospitality for seven years and managed busier venues; I would never treat a customer the way we were treated.

Sadly, this was the worst dining experience of...

I’ve been to this restaurant before and it was lovely which is why I returned!

This time was really disappointing there were numerous errors, being someone from hospitality who works in a restaurant on the water in Brisbane I expected much better!

The break down of it..

When we arrived we arrived early and waitress said we don’t usually give you a table early when there was no one in the restaurant…. Really unprofessional

To start we were shown specials on a board prior to even engaging with our waiter… not even a hello or ask for a drink! I think it’s awful to show a board for specials a waitress should just know to say the specials on request or as an opening speech

we started with prawns it was said in the menu there was coriander as part of the dish there was none in the popcorn prawns

We ordered 3 drinks 2 Pinot nior and a rose lemonade and instead a raspberry lemonade came out for that drink… we asked 3 times to sort the problem

The mains we all order steak two sirloin meat of the day and one fillet the fillet came out and the runner was awful she threw the dishes down. I even had to suggest the way the steak was cooked to the waiter as he was just ready to send the order off! After that we questioned the sauce on the fillet as came with a peppercorn when we asked for a red wine jus she didn’t even know what it came with as an option!

The two meat special one was med one was med/rare but one was well done to the max… at this point we were do hungry we just ate it couldn’t be bother to say anything too many errors

We had tiramisu for dessert and this saved the day as was the only thing that was good from the meal

Very very disappointing I wouldn’t go back based on this experience again

Service was awful people didn’t have a clue what they were doing, not one bit of knowledge or listening skills… if you run a restaurant on the Waterfront it should be the best of the best and it was less than average. Customer service is key and it...