Lido Italia — Restaurant in Brisbane City

Average with average excuses. The positives are that this place can on appearances pass for a decent low key Italian cafe/restaurant with good service, not bad wine and a reasonable beer selection. But appearances aren’t everything. We can only judge by the dishes we ate. Bruschetta was pretty good and plentiful and seemed like something you would get in the back eat streets of Napoli - loads of tomatoes, olive oil and garlic. Then came the mains. - mmm the Bolognese wasn’t robust like I expected. Rather plain with no body (where was the garlic this time? ) but the robustness was found in the pasta which isn’t where you want to find it. Ask for crack pepper (no seasoning is available on the table) and you will be handed a rather often used Woolworths bottle of cracked pepper. That’s ok I suppose but I’ve never been given a Woolworths pepper bottle at any cafe let alone restaurant before. Maybe I need to get out a bit more. So maybe the risotto seafood dish will lift the spirits - nup. Basically the seafood in the “risotto di mare” makes a poor impersonation of itself. Over cooked prawns and very rubbery in edible calamari. When we questioned staff about the over cooked calamari we were told that it’s because it is Moreton Bay calamari and it’s tough and that everyone is used to eating the tenderised Chinese calamari. After that excellent explanation he simply walked away. Oh Ok let’s eat rubber. However that excuse is rubbish because I’ve eaten excellent Australian calamari in the past and if you simply google moreton bay calamari it can be tough but treated and tenderised. - maybe your Italian chef can do some research. I won’t bang on about the overcooked banana prawns and tiny mussels- simply say the dish was a huge disappointment. Last point is how much I hate that simply because a restaurant is empty 2 hours (8pm) before advertised closing time (10pm) staff start stacking chairs around you and making you feel like we better leave. Did we enjoy our experience at Lido Italia? Nup. Would we revisit ? Nup. The owners need to take a step back, look at what they serve up and the little things that add up. Good luck. Maybe we caught them on a bad night or the other dishes...

I’ve eaten here 3-4 times and have gotten take away reasonably regularly. I find the service is consistently poor with long waits for food despite ordering in advance, and then often being given cold food (so if you order 2 things which I usually do, one thing will be hot and the other cold). I usually really like the food which is why I’ve persisted with going there despite the poor service (I just make sure I’m not in a hurry when getting it, and be prepared to heat up any cold dishes). But today, I had a bad experience. First I waited about 20 minutes in addition to the 40 minutes that I’d allowed for them to make the food (so 20 minutes after the given pickup time for my order). Then I was given the wrong food for one of my dishes. So I took it back and no apology was given. So I drove the 5 mins drive home and unfortunately the food was under standard, being stone cold (no surprise there given that it was now about 40 minutes later than expected), undercooked, and missing the key ingredient of Parmesan on the focaccia. I think they need to train their staff better as they have a lot of children (young teenagers) working there. Very disappointed and won’t be going back unless they fix their service. First Photo shows the focaccia I received. Second photo shows what it...

On the plus side the food was good with generous portions, except the prawn starter which was over cooked and dry. The reason for 3 stars is the service is non existent. Sure you get shown to your table, your meals are delivered, and you pay the bill, but that's it. Taets are provided for ordering, we were a party of 4, 2 of us wanted starters for mains, we pressed the "call waiter" button on the tablet to explain we wanted starters served with mains, no response. Specials weren't explained and any questions or changes to an order weren't possible. All starters arrived at the same time, and then our friends had there mains served while we watched them eat. Ok we get the tablets for efficiency and we have used them in many restaurants, but for an Italian restaurant it totally takes away from the feeling of a night out, it's basically a maccas delivering Italian food to your table. Sorry guys, just not on. I would not compare you to Arsonist, Shucks or the Boathouse just on food that wouldn't be fair as the food is solid, not exceptional like the 3 above, the one thing you could do to compete is provide genuine family restaurant service, and that is completely lacking. Won't...