Ciao Cielo — Restaurant in Melbourne

A very mixed review… took my wife here for her birthday and had our baby girl with us too.. I’ll start with the positive, which was the the food, which was very good (for the most part)..

The Arancini balls were delicious, some of the best we’ve ever had. Calamari was soft with a very nice thin layer of batter. The chilli spanner crab pasta was nice and al dente with a decent amount of meat but the dish was supposed to be CHILLI spanner crab and it had absolutely no spice to it whatsoever.

And then there’s the pizza, it was fantastic, just how wood fired pizza should be.. thin, pillowy soft and chewy base with a great amount of topping unlike many other wood fired pizza places.

But then there’s the negative, which truly ruined the experience for us… the service. It was absolutely terrible. There was absolutely no attention from anyone to serve our table. We ordered drinks and my drink in particular did not make it to our table until about half an hour into eating our food! We kept getting told “I’ll check for you”, “it’s coming”, “it’s almost ready” but we were seated next to the bar and NOBODY was working on it. Literally it has only 3 components to make and it took half an hour to receive. Then there’s the crazy wait time to receive our food. At least 25-30 minutes between our starters, seconds and main. Not exactly pleasant when you have a baby with you that’s fussing (and the staff could clearly tell). And finally, when we did receive our food/drinks, the waitstaff constantly placed them closer to the side of the table that our baby was seated. Do they not realise that a baby would just start grabbing and mucking around with it and potentially injure themselves? No logical thinking whatsoever.

Finally, the 2 staff remembers who looked after us for most of the night were very pleasant and nice people, but doesn’t excuse the terrible service and wait times we endured.

The food was the saving grace but poor service left a bad taste...

food is good, service is good. This is another place that favours dine in customers over take out customers. Used to get roast chicken meals take out but now they won’t do it because they don’t have enough stock for their dine in customers. I would have thought a sale is a sale and a take out sale is worth more than an eat in sale as a table is freed up and their is no service staff involved. What is it with Port Melbourne businesses that don’t want to do business? I suggest you change the menu on your website which still says chicken cacciatore on the take away menu even though that was replaced by the roast which is not available take out anyway…. just say pizza’s only, otherwise it is just false advertising.

and in response to the response, I am now a liar. Let me be more precise then. I have had the meal as take away 4 times in the past without question and it was advised to me as the replacement of the cacciatore. A month ago I was told chicken was short supply and not available, I accepted that. You are right about Friday night's conversation. But then, again tonight (Saturday) I called early and a no was the answer again. No offer of pickup at a later time. Your menu has been out of date for many months and the roast chicken has been the cacciatore replacement for many months. Cacciatore is still on the takeaway menu yet the replacement is now not offered as takeaway. By the way, it is not a "sense of entitlement" to expect to be able to order what is advertised on the menu. I'm sorry to hear about the chef, maybe extra staff is required to take the pressure off him to support his mental health. If he almost has a breakdown every weekend, I am seriously concerned for him. It has been made clear that if I dined in I could order it. Stick it on a plate or stick it in an aluminium tray, the cooking process is the same....

The whole experience started at the front door, when my girl friend walked in and said that we had a table booked for 9 pp at 8:30 pm. An older waiter responded back saying “but when did you book it… show me the proof of the phone call you made this afternoon to book the table”, which then we did show… embarrassing but ok. He then guided us to our table. We quite didn’t feel like they wanted us there but we kept going with our birthday celebrations. I have to say that my meal was good and so was my Cosmo, I had the baby chicken and potatoes, no complains from me. However my friend ordered the pasta with crab and didn’t quite like it, she was hungry and proceeder eating it. When this older waiter came back to the table, he asked for feedback on the food and so my friend just told him about the taste of the sauce not being really good (she is italian and works in the hospitality industry from over 15 years, just saying). His answer was “you are the first person to say that, everyone likes it”. I then told this waiter that it is not very professional to answer to a customer that way as her feelings about the meal won’t change with a similar comment. He then looked at me and said “so What should I say?” I suggested to take the feedback to the chef, and he goes “I did, the chef said “ok” and that’s it. I am not the manager". - well, we could tell…

I believe it would be superfluous to say that we won’t come back. It is a shame as the location is pretty and the restaurant offers some good options. However as a first timer experience for the 9 of us, we would go elsewhere next time. We chose this place as it was the only one with sitting available on a Saturday night with late notice… there is always a reason. Spend your money...