Baci — Restaurant in Melbourne

I was so disappointed. Firstly I waited at the 'wait here to be seated' sign only to be ignored, I saw the staff look at me and then look away and do something else - it wasn't busy, so I'm not sure why I would be ignored. Luckily I bumped into friends who already had a table and so I joined them, instead of standing there waiting, only to be ignored. I was charged $26 for scrambled eggs and a small sauce bowl with some mashed avocado. Yes, you read that correctly, that's no toast, no dairy just some scrambled eggs that weren't cooked properly, (the whites were still runny which is a safety hazard) and a tiny sauce dish with avocado. When I questioned the manager about the bill he was really condescending and suggested that I read the menu before ordering. $5.5 for avocado, ok, I'll take that even though I think the serve was measly for $5.50, but I was also charged extra for having no dairy? $6 extra? No one told me that when I ordered they would add egg to replace the dairy and need to pay for that - that's no what I wanted, I wanted a regular amount of eggs - I just can't have dairy. They refused to change the bill, quoting that I should have checked the menu. The manager was very argumentative, I felt like I was trying to calm the manager down just to be able to talk to him - isn't it normally the other way?

I certainly don't think it's fair that I need to be charged because dairy makes me sick, just because they added extra stuff to my breakfast that I didn't ask for and didn't want. I didn't get toast, I didn't have anything but some eggs and a small amount of avocado. And it was $26 and I also got smart arse comments and was made to feel stupid for not reading the menu. However, as I walking out, I checked the menu. It didn't say anything about the extra charge for dairy free or you need to get extra eggs if you can't have dairy - so I called the cafe, and asked where the charge that he was referring to was, only to have the manager change his story and now say that he watched the waiter come over and tell me about the extra charge when I ordered?? This is a lie. No such thing happened and I have three witnesses. I feel like it's a rip off, I actually feel abused and disgusted to be treated like that, just questioning a charge, that's actually unfair. To make matters worse, he hung up on me after telling me that I need to pay for things and that they don't just get the produce from the farm and then chuck it on the plate. For $26 at crown I can get a really good meal! Ridiculous! It's not the amount, it's how it was dealt with. It's ruined a great morning that I was having in the city. After being abused, made to feel stupid, then called a liar and finally hung up on when I was only able to get out a few words, I actually had tears in my eyes.

I've contacted Crown, and I'm awaiting a response.

Stay away from this place, there are so many great places at Crown. Rockpool, the conservatory... even maccas would be an...

Terrible, terrible, terrible! Avoid this place at all costs. If I could I would give this place no stars. My family (2 adults and 2 kids) ordered lunch here yesterday and it was the worst dining experience of our life! Food was horrible. The arancini was way overcooked and tasteless. Tasted like cardboard, and the filling had a funny taste to it, we couldn’t even eat it. The calamari had about 3-4 pieces of calamari and the rest of the plate was filled up with what looked like a salad that came straight from one of those supermarket pre-packaged bags. We asked the waiter if we could get more calamari and he said there should be more under the salad (like I hadn’t already looked under!), I showed him and he took the plate back. He brought another plate with more calamari but the calamari was disgusting! Didn’t even taste like real calamari. Again uneatable. The ragu pasta was rubbery and again tasteless, my son’s chicken and chips was 2 pieces of crumbed overcooked pieces of chicken, chicken was yuck and even the chips weren’t good. How do you get chips wrong!?! $102 later (for food only, we didn’t order drinks) and we all left disappointed and still hungry. An absolute shocker, overpriced and disgusting food, honestly I’m not ever sure how this place is surviving. There are plenty of other good places to eat at at Crown. Go a bit further up to Gradi and you’ll get a much better meal and probably...

We came here about a year ago and it was awful. Partner had preferred dietary requirements that were specified but ignored. Cutlery never came out and was extremely hard to gain any waiters attention. So after sending his meal back mine went cold in the mean time. Severely overpriced and disappointing considering it’s location and pricing. We decided to give it another go and hope that that was a once off - we were wrong. We were waiting line and after five minutes was greeted by a waitress who said “yep?” Not a hi how are you? We proceeded to our table where we ordered drinks - they clearly didn’t listen as they only brought out one Coke Zero when we ordered two - I even put two fingers up as I ordered. Staff very unfriendly, as a customer I felt as if I was being a pain or an inconvenience. As we went to pay, we waited for five minutes as waiters came and went and didn’t engage with us asking if we had been taken care of. We chose to order a French vanilla slice to take away to which he charged us for and then proceeded to take other meals out to tables. He did not tell us where to wait for our dessert and seemed annoyed we were still standing there and rudely ushered us to the right waiting bay. Just disgusting and appalling. I wish I could give less than one star. Two out of two utterly disappointing meals. Will not be going back and advise others to...