Gusto da Gianni — Restaurant in Brisbane City

On New Year's Eve, we went to have dinner at the restaurant Gusto da Gianni around 19:30 It wasn’t our first time, as we live nearby and it’s one of the best restaurants in the area. It was quite busy, and since we didn’t have a reservation, we decided to take any seats available, When no one came to take our order, we asked a young man at the bar if he could call someone to take our order. A man, apparently named Furo, (I’m sorry if it’s not well spelled) came over—I guess in his late 40’s, grey hair, wearing white and black Nike sneakers.

We understand that it was a busy time, and likely stressful for the staff, but I’ve also worked as a waitress New Year's Eve many years ago, and you still need to be just as attentive, polite, and professional as you are on any other day of the year.

The waiter approached us and simply asked, "What do you want?" We replied that we’d like to place our order, and he responded, "I’ll be back in a minute to take the order." He came back a minute later and just said, "YES? To begin with, that’s not an appropriate or polite way to take an order from customers who, even though we didn’t have a reservation, were still going to spend money at the restaurant.

We ordered an appetizer, two main courses, a beer for my partner, and sparkling water.

All the waiters seemed stressed and rushed, with no smiles on their faces. When the main courses arrived, they were lukewarm. They also forgot my steamed veggies (garnish of my main) so I just asked another waiter to bring them. My partner decided not to complain because it would take longer, and we just wanted to eat and leave. The appetizer never came, and everything seemed reheated in the microwave.

The waiter never came back after serving our meals to check if everything was okay. He never showed concern for us, only came to clear the plates when we were done, but didn’t ask if we wanted another drink or dessert.

The restaurant isn’t cheap, and paying for a bottle or sparkling water $11, a beer $17, two main courses, (I had to add the garnish to my main and itself costed $30 plus the price of my main $49, my partner’s meal $49 totaling $152, terrible service is not worth it. I’m extremely disappointed, and even though we like the restaurant and it’s close to home, we won’t be returning.

We were hoping for a good experience, as it was our last dinner of 2024, but unfortunately, it wasn’t.

Now we’ll have to look for other restaurants with better service that are...

This was our favourite local restaurant, until tonight.

I ordered my favourite dish, mussels. The first had a funny taste, so my partner tasted one. His tasted fine so I had another, which also tasted fine. The next I ate made me gag. They just had this really strange bitter taste. Being our favourite restaurant we debated over sending the dish back, discussing that this sometimes happens with mussels, they're just one of those things. I couldn't eat anymore after the last one, it had completely ruined my appetite, so we let the waitress know.

She was lovely and took the dish away straight away, offering a replacement. I politely declined and said I didn't feel like eating anymore. We remained while my partner continued eating his dish, which he said was really nice. A few moments later a gentleman arrived without introducing himself and started telling me that there was nothing wrong with the mussels as they'd just been delivered that morning. I told him that I believed him but that the mussels still tasted awful and I didn't want anymore. My partner asked if he was telling us I was wrong and he turned to my partner and just said "yes" then turned back to me. Then he started offering to show us the invoices for the mussels, at which point it was getting quite embarassing. I hadn't complained or requested another dish, we just wanted to eat the rest of my partner's meal in peace. When he finally left us alone, we'd both lost our appetites from the embarassing occurrence and decided to leave without finishing my partner's meal either.

The food here is usually good, and the service is generally impeccable. Unfortunately, the disappointing and embarassing situation tonight occured only because of the poor attitude of who I am afraid is probably the owner or manager. We would have been quite happy going back, having just been unlucky with a couple of iffy mussels but this man's complete lack of understanding of the term customer service has ruined one of our favourite restaurants for us. Such a shame. He should have left his employees to...

Do not arrive close to closing hours (mainly Sunday), as their staffs are not prepared to treat their customers politely - zero customer service.

I can’t rate the food but the Service Experience is as important as the meal, mainly for a $$$ place like this.

I have checked the trading hours here and it says it closes 8:30pm on Sunday. I have arrived at 7:40pm, and it seems they were understaff as there was no one at the door - I noticed later only a “waiter” and the runner cleaning the tables.

My friend and I got a table, and at the first glance from the “waiter” I waved at him to order something, as it too so long to someone approach us. “waiter” as based on his attitude around the floor, he was acting also as manager.

I kindly asked for a few drinks to start with and he was straight away rude saying the kitchen was closed. I then asked for drinks only - the restaurant was operating with a few customer , and even other tables were still ordering drinks and dessert.

He insisted saying he wouldn’t serve us any drink, so I asked for water - then the unexpected happened:

This man, rudely said that he wouldn’t give us water as we were not dinning in. (Maybe because he didn’t want to serve any drink at all?)

Well, I left the feedback straight to him as his Customer Service was horrible, and rude!

The restaurant was opened, operating and we’ve got there before even the closing hours shared on their website, it’s understandable that they might have closed the kitchen due the lack of customers, however rejecting a customer to place drinks while operating was the first time I’ve experienced that - furthermore not even being nice to get some water.

It just sound a toxic place, managed by someone who don’t treat their customers well, so as he behaved as a manager, it would be surprised if their staff were well trained and treated fairly by this “gentleman”.

1 star is way too much for this Customer Experience. I wouldn’t mind turn the corner and visit again Byblos, where you will then find a great...