La Porchetta Italian Restaurant Surfers Paradise — Restaurant in Gold Coast City

Nice but not amazing.

They gave us 2 tables for a large group, seating the kids at one table and adults at the other. This seemed like a lovely gesture from the waiter, and I was impressed.

One waiter was super quick to take orders for the kids, which we really appreciated, as getting 8+ of them started is always an endeavour. But then, no-one came back for adult orders.

We tried waving down staff, and were either not seen, ignored, or brushed off 8 or 9 times. Eventually, going to the bar to place the order after waiting 15 mins.

Normally this is not a problem at all, places get busy, but here the kids food came out fast!

The kids ate it over a half hour or so, then after another 25-30-ish mins started playing around as they got bored.

Nearly an hour after ordering our food, it began to trickle out of the kitchen (again, on its own this is not a problem).

It was already a somewhat unpleasant experience because kids were bored and already fed, but worse, nearly 15 mins between the first adult being served and the last, our food was cold when we started eating.

This was just unpleasant.

Similarly, an older couple at the table next to me leaned over at one stage to ask for my help, as the waitress had brought only half their food and no drinks. They also wanted to start eating, apparently unable to get the waitresses attention.

The food was reasonable. Okay prices, okay quality on the pasta. However, a big fail on the seafood as it was well and truly turned to rubber.

3/5 but only just. I'll go again as it may have been a bad night.

At least it was sufficiently clean given the outdoor tables, and we were not near any smokers. Overall, a lovely night with friends...

We went here on a Saturday night because we couldn’t get into the booked out Italian place up the road. It took an hour to get two plates of pasta. My kids were losing it. I ordered a vodka sunrise, a fairly standard mixed spirit, they made me this weird cocktail called a raspberri sunrise that cost $7 more and had cranberry juice in it and the orange juice was that nasty cheap stuff that tastes like stomach acid. I asked to just leave it off the bill as I no longer wanted a drink but they said I had to order a drink because “we already made that drink and you didn’t want it” even though it wasn’t what I ordered. The staff were ok about it but I found it pretty dumb or poor customer service that they wouldn’t let me just return it. I ordered a vodka Diet Coke and there was so much ice in it, it basically tasted like straight vodka and water. The carbonara sauce was nice but the gnocchi were a bit rubbery. Nice fettuccine. Garlic bread came out way before our meals and was very overpriced. Too many customers for the amount of staff they had on. Too money hungry in my opinion. I told the waitress at the end that we were unhappy about the long wait, she asked if I wanted to speak to the manager about it and I said “she’s not going to do anything about it” and she said “yeah probably not” and she didn’t. She just blamed the busyness on the marathon. Also the outdoor heaters were up so high I had to move seats and I am always cold so it was...

I enjoyed my food here. The chicken parm was good. However, the staff didn't seem friendly. I know it was a busy night but it doesn't take much for a smile and politeness, especially when it's your job. The biggest issue we had was that when we were offered to sit upstairs or downstairs, we weren't informed that the function at the table a few feet from us were about to start Karaoke (but not really Karaoke since it was only one person singing without taking a break) at full volume. It took a while for our food to be delivered. During that time, we had 3 pizzas delivered to our table, we didn't order pizza. During that whole time, we had to listen to the... I guess you could call it karaoke. The only reason it's 2 stars is because of my food. If I had a tinder date, they probably wouldn't get a second one, through no fault of their own. The experience and food was not...