Kouzina Byron Bay — Restaurant in Byron Bay

We chose this place for the rave reviews we had heard and read but unfortunately, we had a disappointing experience at Kouzina last night. Although the setting and music is very charming (just like a taverna in Greece), the authenticity was not carried forth by the service or the food. We felt a rushed 'detachment' from the staff, instead of the usual warmth and generous hospitality of the Greeks, and only received one dip with the first course but not even enough pita bread to finish the dip, olives and entrées with. When we asked for more pita bread to finish the entrées with, we waited some time before it arrived and even then, we weren't given a full basket - only receiving enough for 1 more little triangle per person (for a table of 10 we would have needed 4 baskets of pita instead of only 2 and when bread is so cheap, I don't understand why this would be restricted). Also, instead of receiving tzatziki with our entrées and pita bread, it came with potato chips with the mains... Although the food was very tasty and cooked very well, there wasn't enough of it and the meal was missing the key flavours and dishes for an authentic 'Greek' experience - for example, there was no feta, taramasalata, skordalia, dolmades, halloumi - and to top it all off, no Greek salad, which is unheard of in any of the great Greek restaurants we have been in throughout Australia, let a lone Greece. The souvlaki was delicious but we only received 1 skewer per person so for me as a pescatarian, 1 skewer of squid was the only seafood I received in the whole meal (everything else was red meat or vegetarian) when I love the usual abundance of seafood at a Greek taverna. The vegetarian options were delicious and the gluten free options for one of our guests were enjoyed but, to top it all off, the salad that we were given was more of an Italian salad - just leaves of radicchio, a little bit of lettuce and other bitter greens (no tomatoes, olives, red onion, cucumber or feta). When I questioned where the Greek salad was, I was told that there are no ripe tomatoes locally at the moment (June) when I buy beautiful organic ripe tomatoes at the local farmer's market every week at the moment (??). Even a salad of cucumber, red onion, feta, and olives would do better than what we received, if there truly were no tomatoes available. Also, there was even affogato (Italian dessert) offered as one of only 3 desserts on the menu at an additional charge. The extra cost of the dessert is fine by us but the only traditional dessert to have was baklava - no galaktoboureko, or loukoumades, kataifi, rizogalo etc so we had none. There's also no juice on offer for children, only fizzy soft drinks. So, in summation, although the food was very fresh and tasty, there was not enough of it (we'd rather order specific dishes to create our own banquet) and after traveling to many places in Greece, as well as frequenting some of the best Greek restaurants in Australia, if you are looking for an authentic Greek experience, this is not the...

Seriously DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY here. There are several other greek restaurants in Byron that are going to cost you less and you aren’t going to leave feeling hungry AND you will have a choice of what you eat.

The Idea of the restaurant is great (A Greek feast apparently…) and looking at their website, the photos of the food looked great. NOTE TO SELF… you don’t get food resembling anything like the photos on the website. Also the website says $60 per person. This also isn’t correct…. Its $65 per person. Actually their website is nothing like what you get AT ALL!!

What do you get then? Ok so you start with a very small bowl of squishy olives. Starters was some flatbreads with a small serve of taramasalata, hummus and a bean and calamari salad thing. You then get a choice of chicken or pork for main course. Honestly i nearly fell off my chair when they placed the one plate of food on the table to be shared between 4 of us. One skewer of meat each containing 4 bits of chicken or pork, some roast potatoes and a small greek salad with no feta. Then a bowl of lamb with orzo pasta and a slice of spanakopita. To be fair, the food was tasty, and the atmosphere was good, but for $65 a head, a total rip off. It would've been a lot of food if you were a mouse but we aren’t so we left hungry and very out of pocket. It really isn’t value for money on any level. I did mention the price on the website to the waitress as she eagerly typed in $260 for the 4 of us. She mentioned this to the manager (i think) who then got shitty and said if you are that upset about it ill do it for $240. Ill take that as a small win and make sure in future I check the reviews. If I had checked, i wouldn’t have booked here as a lot of others saying...

*Set menu for $60 with minuscule serving. I am actually saying, very very very minuscule. *We booked for 6pm, and waited for 1.5hour for all 3 (very small) courses to be served. When we pointed that out, the waitress, instead of apologising, was defensive. She said "The charcoal is wet from the storm." I said .. "Maybe let your patrons know before hand see if they are prepared to wait? " She answered "We didn't know that the charcoal was wet." Surely, after a storm the scale of what the Northen Rivers have received in March 2022, a restaurant that uses BBQ for their "set menus only" will check to see if their outdoor BBQ was good enough to serve food? with about 12 pieces of potato wedges to share between 2 people, and 1 squid tube each, and 2 mouthful of lamb barley dish, plus 2 spoonfull of salad each, and 3 pieces of tiny pita bread with - credit to them - very yummy dips, we left the place hungry. Not the Greek meal we expect. I personally think the worst thing is that after reading so many similar reviews and then we encountered the same thing, it's a shame that the restaurant has not looked for ways to improve their service and food. Also very shocking to read very defensive and rude comment by the owner in one of the reviews below, yes the review was not that great and getting personal, but surely the owner can show some professionalism? 1 star for BYO and some staff there who are smiley and friendly. Thought we could go out to support some small local businesses after COVID and the floods... maybe will go somewhere...