Cervo — Restaurant in Melbourne

Long weekend away planned 5/3/21 Checked into hotel Friday afternoon. Called to book a reservation at 8pm at Italian restaurant Cervo.

On the table we had three meals brought out. Calamari. Roast chicken and marinara.

Three meals did seem slights undercooked. Calamari was very soft. Chicken had weird texture and the potatoes were hard and raw tasting. Marinara was not very warm.

Myself nor did my partner complete our mains. Not sure to quantity

Staff was welcoming and friendly Prices are good.

Come 5am my partner had woken us in our hotel to a quick dash to the bathroom. Finding herself in a bad situation of vomiting consistently. No headaches or dizziness.

Comes 10am we need to time it between breaks to checkout and race home.

At this stage we thought it may have just been an upset stomach. 15 minutes in the drive we find ourselves pulled over for the third time. This time I find it serious as partner was having shivers and cold flush’s along with the dry reaching.

At this stage still no water or hydrolyte could be held in.

We make the section to move to the closest emergency. ( Footscray hospital).

With severe barfing in the emergency entrance, and spending four sessions in the toilets in 15 minutes. We were taking straight in for urine and blood testing.

Placed on a drip sack from 11am through to 1pm, doctor revealed poisoning and will Need to stay. We were then transferred from Emergency to hospital term wards. Again placed on drip. With multiple injections.

Come Saturday night we pushed for a Release as very uncomfortable. Doctor handed us a report and script. But wanted us to report it symptoms persist.

Continuing to barf until 3am Sunday morning. It was finally passing.

Very greatful we had made the decision to go to emergency rather then risking it at home. Very server.

Following day I contacted the shift manager. With no intent to blame or insult anyone. Purely as feedback incase something may be prevented.

But now I had just received a Call back from owner with a very nasty conversation. Three minutes into listening I placed phone on loud speaker. For my House mate to hear the words “how dare you give feedback about our food”. Followed by a few minutes on what there service does for the community. With the call not giving me an option to have any words spoken. And with no questions asking about the day or how my partner is doing. I find my self to mouth back with *how dare he think I were to blame anyone or point fingers. It were to help assist and prevent someone else having to go through what we did.

I now find myself writing this review to share my experiences.

Unfortunately this was our experience of a very unfortunate labour...

Just flew in with my wife from Sydney to meet with our friend in Melbourne who suggested Cervo as a friendly place to casually dine however we were immediately proven wrong and I will highly recommend anyone who wishes to dine there to be mindful and please read my detailed review.

The issue is not the food, as we didn't have an opportunity to try, it's the one rude server (or bouncer I'm not sure)

Our friend booked dinner for 6:30 for 3 people on Tuesday for Friday dinner, once we arrived we were rightly stopped at the front door to both check in and provide our covid digital certificates to confirm we are double vaxxed and log our attendance, for those coming in from Sydney you cannot use Service NSW to check in however you can provide your digital certificate which is only available for fully vaxxed people, this larger behemoth brunette lady who stopped us said she didn't validate the NSW vaccination certificate and requested Medicare versions so she can confirm time and date the jabs went in to allow us to dine, my wife who has 2 factor authentication left her 2nd phone back in Sydney assuming a digital certificate would suffice was unable to login to Medicare, we were also unable to call as they closed at 5pm and the large covid Marshall lady declined the entry.

Not only was she rude and treated interstate visitors as 2nd class citizens, she actually was unable to find the booking which led us to believe she made the scene as no tables could be offered, it's easier to be honest than to give people a hard time.

Funny thing is, as we were anxiously trying to contact Medicare and myGov anyway, we literally witnessed 3 other couples walk in without a single confirmation or being stopped to produce the amount of information we were asked for? Honestly that's just plain rude

Would I recommend anyone to dine at Cervo? definitely not, and good luck getting in if you have Dorothy at the front door bouldering you back out

And if any staff or management at Cervo do read this, I'd suggest you read the service NSW covid digital certificate qualifications before you assume that we are any less entitled

Wow, what an...

Located on the riverwalk side of the Crown Casino, Cervo has been serving fantastic Italian food for decades. I have eaten here numerous times over the years and it seems over all this time that the quality of the service and dishes have not changed.

It was not extremely busy last Wednesday evening when my Mother and I came in for dinner so some of the inside seating had been closed off. It was a little too cold to sit on the patio (I have been out there before and it is lovely in nice weather) so we were shown to a small table next to the door. It was a little annoying when wait staff had to go outside as a cold breeze would blow in and onto my back but not a huge deal, just don't pick the table by the door when its windy.

Our wine and appetiser orders were taken almost immediately, the Italian Meatballs and the Arancini Balls we ordered came out within ten minutes of ordering but our wine took a little longer. Almost twenty. No issues though- the two dishes we'd picked were so delicious that we were distracted! I particularly loved the sauce that came with the Arancini dish, so tasty!

Our mains were just as fantastic as our appetisers. My Mum had the Caesar Salad- really fresh! And I had the Duck Risotto which is possibly one of the best dishes I've ever tasted. The risotto was perfectly cooked and the duck was plentifully spread throughout the dish plus exceedingly flavourful and not too fatty. I was too full but continued to eat anyway because it was just so damn delicious!

Staff were friendly and exceedingly happy to help with any queries about the menu we had. I wish I had more room in my stomach as the specials on the Specials Board...