La Pizza — Restaurant in Cairns City

COULD HAVE COST ME MY LIFE. If you have allergens please, please avoid.

Christmas Day, my girlfriend and I wanted to go for some food as we are here travelling from the UK. They were busy, which was to be expected given the day but we were able to get a table non the less. I mentioned my allergy to the first waitress and she assured me that she would make the kitchen aware of it.

We ordered our food and the starter came out in good time but I noticed that there was pesto on it - this is fine, as I have had plenty of nut safe pesto and so I had no immediate concern given I had mentioned my allergy. However, airing on the side of caution, we asked the waitress who served it if it was defiantly nut safe and she said she would double check with the kitchen.

When she came back she said “yep, all good - It doesn’t have any nuts in it” … fast forward 2 minutes of me eating and my throat is itchy, my gums are itchy and I’m rather panicked.

We quickly had a server (the one we initially mentioned the allergy too) over to ask again about nuts as I knew something wasn’t right and that had to be it. She got her manager - who was in no immediate rush given the circumstances and pondered over to the kitchen and in NO hurry came back and said “yes, this does have nuts in it.”

At this point, I’m in pain my mouth is feeling worse and I’m stressed to no end. I asked which type of nuts (as some are far worse than others) and he again, strolled to the kitchen and came back at said “not sure, they’re mixed nuts” ….

There was NO RUSH or sense of urgency. I had to leave immediately, didn’t receive an apology as if this manager (possibly owner) did not understand the severity of the situation or he simply was too busy care.

Fast forward 30mins and I’ve been sick with my throat closing over and I’m in the emergency room.

Before this we have travelled most of south east Asia with language barriers and we did not have an issue with my allergy which makes me question how it is even possible for this to go so horribly wrong?

It truly ruined Christmas Day but could have ended my life!

Among other action, I am writing this review in the hopes I can warn others who value their life to not risk losing it at this establishment and that should an issue occur it’s unlikely the staff would even care that they’ve almost killed you.

** the manager did mention it would take 2mins to walk to the hospital.. I have just seen it was going to take 20mins to walk!

EXTREMELY...

We tried this restaurant basically because it was the only one we hadn't been to along the esplanade. We had a table for 4 (all locals). The atmosphere was great, and seating was relaxing. However, the food was really pretty bad. We ordered two TRATTORIA Platters ($60 each), the Lasagna, the ZUCCA GORGONZOLA Gnocchi and a Pear salad. The seafood from the platters were terrible, the calamari was like rubber and just not eatable, the makereal was grey and tasted like it had been in the freezer too long. We did our best to eat them but both Platters were left with over half of the seafood left on there. The gnocchi was very bland - I opted to take it home so i could make a real cheese sauce to add to it because I just didnt want to waste another meal. The portion was good but the only flavour I was getting was the walnut pieces that were sprinkled throughout. The rocket to lettuce ratio in the pear salad was off especially when it said it was to be served with mixed lettuce not rocket. We ended up all picking at my daughter in laws lasagna. I would have typically asked for a discount or at least made a point of letting the manager know how disappointed we were, but it was a super busy weekend in Cairns with the festival, and the staff and kitchen crew already looked quite stressed by the time we were ready to leave (around 7pm). But $287 later and yes I do now regret not making more of a fuss and getting a refund for at least one of the Platters. Oh well lesson learnt. I guess we won't be returning for a meal and unfortunately we won't be able to...

We arrived here this evening and had a look at the menu outside for a moment. We were spoken to by two members of staff who seemed friendly and we got a nice table overlooking the sea. Our waiter took our drinks order immediately (a coke, a lemonade and tap water) and left us to look at our food menus. We looked at the menu for maybe 5-10 minutes and then put them to one side to make it clear that we were ready to order. No sign of our drinks at this point. Our waiter returns to take our order after 15 minutes and when we ask him to chase our drinks he pulls a second order pad out of his pocket which clearly has our drinks order written on it... So that explains why we've had no drinks. You'd think that realising his mistake at this point would lead him to immediately rectify the situation but no... He then went and arranged napkins and knives and forks on side plates for 5 minutes before putting our food order through. Our starter arrived and we had to ask the manager for our drinks to actually get them. The coke and lemonade finally appeared and we ate our starter. When the manager brought our main courses he asked if we would like some water... given we'd asked twice for some at this point we just said "yes please." We then still had to ask again to get some water. That's a total of three times asking and once being offered it to get a bottle of tap water to us. The food was lovely. It's a shame that poor service let...