Sorrento Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in Airlie Beach

Milestone birthday celebration gone wrong. We chose this beautiful waterfront location for our beloved mum/grandmothers 70th birthday celebration. If we had known we were going to leave so upset and disappointed we would have just gone to the pub. If i could give less stars, i would. A serious overhaul of service and food quality needs to occur in this establishment. We booked our table at 5pm so that we could be in and out in a few hours and be given plenty of time to relax and have a beautiful meal together to celebrate. Kids food came out quickly but was complete mush like something that had been overcooked and reheated. We then ordered our entrees and mains together. Entrees came out quickly but mains took a shocking amount of time to come out. By the time our food came out our kids were miserable, and ready to leave. We didn't even get to enjoy our food by this point but to be honest it wasn't even an issue as we found half of it to be inedible. Seafood tasted slimy and was clearly not fresh, the pizza tasted like it was cooked from frozen, there was a hair embedded in a fried fish (we did get this removed from the bill) and pasta dishes were just not of a quality that we came to expect. We planned on staying for dessert but couldn't stay any longer and quite frankly did not trust getting another thing off the menu so we went without singing happy birthday on our beautiful mums special occasion.

I dont understand how it can take 1.5 hours for some seafood platters, one pizza and a couple of pastas when tables that arrived an hour after us got their food first. Not to mention there were multiple empty tables and the restaurant definitely wasn't at capacity.

Our entree and kids dishes were still sitting on the table uncleared whilst trying to consume our mains. The tables were only rushed to be cleared when there was another group of patrons seemingly waiting for our table.

Service was lack lustre, absolutely no communication or check ins other than taking our order and bringing the food out. A large big paying group should be given quality service on a special occasion. If you were understaffed in the kitchen, that wouldve been acceptable if it had been communicated earlier.

It was a very dissapointing experience, paying a $900+ bill for our dinner felt like a robbery after it all. I would recommend future patrons to consider their options. Wouldn't want anyone to go through what we went through tonight. Hopefully improvements can be made to...

Pros: Food was great—tasty and generous in size.

Cons: Service was abruptly bad. I booked a table for 7:30 PM and even called ahead to let them know I’d be late. The person on the phone said it was fine as long as we arrived by 8:00 PM.

We got there at 7:45 PM and, on the way, received a call saying the kitchen was closing at 8 PM and our reservation was being moved from the balcony to the deck because the balcony was “closing.” When we arrived, the balcony still had people dining, with maybe three tables empty.

I was shocked to be told the kitchen was closing—especially since I was literally one minute away and the staff tried to take my order over the phone. Then we were seated on the deck, at a wobbly high-top table in the corner near the smoking area—for a birthday reservation. While the balcony was still full until we left at 9 pm. So much of closing that area as we had been told.

We had to go to the bar and rush to place our order. The bartender was dry and unhelpful, and when we asked what time the bar closed, she just said “probably in 15 minutes.” It took nearly 15 minutes to get my cocktail, and when it finally came, the runner apologized for the delay but didn’t even know where to take it. When I asked him what time the bar was closing, he said “maybe now, maybe later.” No clue at all.

While I was away ordering more cocktails, the food runner came to our table. My husband was smoking right next to it, but she almost walked away with our food until he stopped her. Her response? “I saw an empty table and thought I’d get to have some dinner to myself tonight…” Seriously? Who says that?

My mood was already ruined, and we only stayed because we had paid for our mains.

As someone who runs and manages a restaurant, it was painful to witness such a lack of professionalism. Maybe the food is award-winning, but the service was worse than at McDonald's. Can’t wait to share this experience with friends back home who were planning to visit Airlie Beach—definitely telling them to...

My mum and I stopped here whilst out on a walk by the marina and asked to book a table for later in the evening, the woman initially said that the restaurant was extremely busy and offered us a high seat at that time in the bar area, I declined as my Mum has a bad hip and this would be uncomfortable for her, the server then said we could sit upstairs on the balcony area. We arrived back later for our table and the same server attempted to put us in the bar area, I kindly reminded her of the previous conversation which she dismissed had happened, after I pushed back we were sat on the balcony. I ordered a cocktail which arrived almost after I had finished my entree - the cocktail took around 40 minutes to make. I had kilpatrick oysters, some of the bacon was burnt black taking away any flavour or taste from the oyster or sauce. For main my Mum had chicken supreme, the carrots were extremely undercooked. I had rissoto which also had traces or burnt fish through it. The waitress who was serving us was extremely vacant and on two occasions walked away from the table whilst we were trying to order and ask for additional plates and more drinks. All of the waiting staff here I assume are completing farm work for vis requirements, I have no issue with this as 7 years ago I went through the same process, however basic hospitality and person centred skills should be required. We tried to return our cheque book with the bill and 3 waitresses turned their backs to us as we approached the til afea, one finally took the folder, aggressively grabbed the cash out and counted it out infront of us, I understand this may be procedure but it was extremely ill mannered and in poor taste, she didn’t say goodbye afterwards. This place has a lot of potential as it has some stunning views, but we were left extremely disappointed on the first night...