Gino's Restaurant — Restaurant in Brisbane City

There is nothing attractive about Gino's from the outside - sparse decor, brightly lit interior, chunky wooden chairs - but due to tiredness from a day of travel I went against my first impressions and made the call that this was it for dinner.

Sadly, the food matched that first impression and my take-away feeling was, staffed by teenagers, cooked by microwave.

I had a veal parmigana which arrived too quickly, within 5 minutes which spoke of a high degree of preparedness.

Situated alone on the plate it was a large slice of veal, crumbed with melted cheese and a drip of Bolognese sauce. Sounds classic but it failed to impress, coming across more like a chicken kiev in the thickness of the crumbs and the veal itself did not sell fresh, it smelt stale. There seemed no herbs in the crumbs so there was a very crunchy, fried food feel to this.

My "salad" arrived separately a minute later, not sure why, being a sad little bowl of lettuce, some onion, a few pieces of tomato and some kind of dressing, hard to tell what that was. And 'little bowl' was being literal - it was probably 4 inches across, some kind of desert bowl I'm guessing, and it was stingy.

Overall, the main lacked finesse and while for $22 I was not expecting Three Hats, I was expecting something more tasty than this.

Desert was a "Caramel Surprise". The surprise was that it fit in yet another 4-inch bowl. Basically ice-cream wrapped in chocolate, it was clearly out of a packet, but being in that bowl (which it just fit) again showed zero finesse or pizzazz.

Coffee was OK, a flat white.

Interestingly, the restaurant was reasonably full, and had a good turnover of take away pizzas. And tellingly, the table beside mine turned away their main for not being cooked (that was after they had to exchange a dirty knife).

I can't recommend Gino's. I was served expensive fast food that failed to provide "The True Italian Tradition" that Gino's purports on...

Dinner was a embarrassingly poor effort for a place that claims to be an Italian restaurant. The "garlic bread" was nothing more than 3 slices of baguette with a thin spread of margarine and a tiny bit of green, popped under the grill for a few minutes. If there was garlic in the mix we couldn't taste it. And no other seasoning whatsoever, not even a pinch of salt to bring out a bit of flavour. I have had No Name garlic bread that tasted better than this.

We shares a Supreme + pineapple and prawn calzone (or a "closed pizza" as this "Italian" restaurant calls it) and it was exceptionally disappointing. The filling was cold as was the red, watery sauce it was served with. The cheese was almost non-existent, the pineapple was canned, the ham was cheap and nasty shredded ham like that which you buy from Woolies as a pizza topper, and there was ONE tiny, tasteless little shrimp included.

Words cannot describe my disgust at the poor quality and if it wasn't 8pm and if we weren't really, really hungry we would have left after the first mouthful. As it was we didn't finish either the bread or the calzone, it was simply insulting to be served such disgusting food.

We certainly will not go back to this place and if there was an option to rate it lower than 1 star, I most certainly would have.

• EDIT * It's interesting that the owner's response sarcasticly referred to my "very high expectations" when in fact all we expected was decent Italian food. But after reading of other people's experiences when criticising this place, I am really not surprised. You've got to wonder why the owners don't lift their game after receiving so many bad reviews. I guess it's easier to deflect than analyse your...

Good day all, Jack Kelly here. The ratings I have given are only a summation of having read quite a few of the recent reviews. Once a Hamilton Institution, Gino's was sold a number of years ago by the Original Family who had made it the Icon that it was for all those years. After giving it time, as I put it, to settle down, I ordered my Favourite Pizza, as Takeaway, to test the waters so to speak, with unfortunately a negative result, it was not up to scratch. Since that time I have not ordered Take Out or returned as a diner to Gino's Restaurant at Hamilton. It is unlikely, having sifted through and evaluated the recent reviews, that I will return to Gino's. Very sad, as for many years we were regulars, dining probably twice a week and also the occasional takeout, without ever any problems. We always started with a dozen Prawn Cutlets, which we shared as an entree, followed by Veal Fungi, which was always EXCELLENT. So don't take my word for it or anybody else's. What you should do is order a small takeaway of something you really like and test the waters yourself. This should give you a good idea of the quality of the food, without wasting a truckload of money on inferior food. One question I do have, is why So Many People seem to complain about the quality and freshness of the food, yet they still paid good money for apparently Sub Standard Meals, as opposed to sending them back, to be replaced or simply sending them back and walking out the door. The Mind Boggles. Regards Jack Kelly, Bon Appetit, unfortunately for me,...