Maldini — Restaurant in Hobart

The food here is certainly the stand out however the service here could certainly use a positive lift. The staff appear to be stuck in the early stages of the depression with very little in the way of a smile to greet and receive guests. Basic service etiquette wouldn’t dance astray at Maldinis. We sat to an unturned table, no napkin, no cutlery....... no problem. The waiter planted the menus in front of us with no explanation as to where to locate the drinks menu and no attention to the specials of the evening. We spotted the specials aboard the posts set up toward the roof and the drinks at the back of the food menu. We ordered our drinks. The wine was served chilled in a wine cooler (with no ice) a taste was poured and the lid removed. Needless to say the wine had warmed over the course of our meal. We followed our drinks order with the olives, sourdough and polenta/scallop starter. We received the entrees before requesting cutlery and napkins. (An apology was offered) neither waiter or waitress had recognised this minor dilemma until we’d brought this to their attention. The main courses followed some 15 minutes later (a nice break from the entrees) however our salad seemed to have been forgotten. We finished our meals and some ten minutes later our empties plates and cutlery were removed. Our sparkling water was topped by us, as was the wine. No offer of dessert? So be it. We asked for a lid for the wine ,along with he bill. The bill was placed in front of us, and an ill fitting lid provided from the waitress fanny pocket. The change was returned to the table, no smile, no how did you enjoy your meals simply the ol’ dump and run. Sad really, the food here was good, exceptional actually, simple well prepared Italian, would we be back? Questionable based on the service or lack thereof. A shame really but hey if word of mouth echoes to indicate some service training has been provided to the staff? Then maybe ..... after all, the ambience atmosphere and quality are all there..... accompanying beverages are just as important to some patrons as the food, so take care and deliver the experience I’m sure the chef intend to offer his hungry guests. A note also the table two over was served beer in a can, the beer was poured into a flat sitting beer glass. 7/8 ths head to 1/8ths beer. I’d suggest he’d have passed...

Had a booking for 9 tonight and waited almost an hour for our food. I understand that being a big group can be hard to accomodate for, however none of the staff communicated with us to let us know what was happening. Everyone makes mistakes and that’s ok but at least communicate it with the customer. From my observation, it looked like some confusion or miscommunication in the kitchen which lead to orders being late as the restaurant did not appear to be that busy. Although we were a big group, we ordered modestly with 8 pastas and 2 entrees between 9 people.

What I was more disappointed about was the lack of compensation. When you stuff up and are late on people’s orders at least provide us with some complimentary snacks to keep the customers from starving. If this isn’t possible, at least provide some form of a discount to compensate for a stuff up on the restaurants’ end. We paid an extra 15% as it was public holiday and if a customer is paying extra, have the food come out on time or at least compensate us in some way (e.g. no public holiday charge or complimentary food etc)!!

In terms of the food, it was ok. Nothing too special but not too bad as well. However one thing to comment on was the Spaghetti Marinara. The pasta was quite bland and the flavours were not balanced. The white wine diluted most of the flavour out of the sauce which left the pasta tasting like it was only boiled. It was also missing an element of fat in the sauce. I could see the use of olive oil however some cheese would’ve helped to bring all these flavours together.

I’m giving this place 2 stars as the waitress serving us was quite polite and I could tell that she knew we were hungry. Although she did not communicate with us as to why the food was late I could see her constantly going to the kitchen to check up on what was happening. Not her fault. Management needs to do better. After this experience I don’t think I’ll be coming back as there are other nice Italian restaurants in Hobart.

Moral of the story, compensate your customers if you’ve made a mistake. If you don’t want to compensate your customers as it costs your business money, then make sure your team is...

YUM YUM YUM

I dined there with some work friends just before Xmas and there was not a seat free in the venue

We had a table outside and the venue provided heating and it was a reasonable evening in Hobart so felt comfortable.

The seating was also nicely spaced and the location of the venue is in Salamanca giving off a exciting Christmas vibe as it is a perfect location for outside dining and a fun night with friends

Inside however the seating is extremely close and as every seat was full it was rather noisy.

Walking through to the rest rooms it appeared the vibe was more of a hustle and bustle as I weaved past the tables to reach the back of the restaurant, but having not dined in there Im just guessing the atmosphere

Now lets talk about the food, unfortunately I was having too much fun to capture the menu, but I had not dined there before and thought... oh yeah just another pasta dish, but boy I was wrong

The meals were full of flavour , fresh produce and not sure if they make their own pasta but it certainly tasted like they had The menu was extensive but we all just chose a main meal

I cant remember the name of my order , oops , Xmas fun but it was a Chicken and mushroom pasta and I asked if I could change the chicken to prawns, which was no problem at all from their end.

It was probably one of the nicest pasta dishes I have ever eaten, the mushroom flavour was divine and there was just the right amount of sauce v's pasta, topped with heaps of juicy tasty prawns. Everyone at the table comments were on how much they enjoyed their meal, which says that meals are consistently good

At one stage it started to sprinkle with rain and even though we were under an umbrella we were getting slightly wet

Upon letting the staff know they quickly moved our table to a spot that was out of the weather, with no fuss

The service was great and they allowed us to pay for each of our meals making it easy to vacate with no fuss, so we left feeling very relaxed

Enjoyed the meal , service and atmosphere wish I could dine there...