The worst service I have ever received in a restaurant.

It’s hard to know where to start. We had a table for 8 booked on New Year’s Day. I had recommended Crinitis to my family and friends due to a nice dinner we had there about 4 years ago.

There were 7 of us and as we were seated I noticed the tables were dirty and I asked for them to be wiped down. It wasn’t done. I asked again about 10 minutes later as did one of my friends. We had to ask 3 times before someone came to wipe down the tables we were seated at.

The table had not been set up for us. There was no cutlery and I asked twice for water to be brought out.

Two of my friends ordered starters and these were brought out and placed in front of my friends but we still did not have cutlery.

We asked again (3rd time) for cutlery and it was brought out on a plate with all the forks & knives and napkins on the plate and it was left at the head of the table. I had to literally hand out the cutlery to each guest at our table.

About 5 minutes later they brought out the mains. The starters hadn’t even been finished and they propped down each main meal in front of each guest. My mum was still eating her starter when one of the waiters pushed a plate past her face to give it to my partner. My partner was not impressed and asked him to not be lazy and come around the table rather than pushing past the face of a 76 year old woman.

4 guests enjoyed their meals. The other 3 thought the food was mediocre. The pasta left a lot to be desired and my seafood skewers (at $50 no less) were dry and under seasoned.

After we finished eating we waited 45 minutes for the plates to be removed from in front of us. I actually stopped one of the waitresses and asked for our plates to be cleared and she took two plates and never came back. We actually had to ask again for our table to be clearer.

At no stage were we offered more water even though the empty water bottle was prominent at the top of the table.

We all ordered desserts and again they came out and we had no cutlery. The food was just left in front of us and we had to ask for cutlery twice. When it did come out the two people that were doing it were clueless and doubling up what the other person had done. They put down forks & knives and then remembered it was dessert so they went and got spoons.

My friend’s sticky date pudding was so dry inside that it was inedible and had to be sent back.

My partner went upstairs to the toilets where he saw two staff members asleep on chairs for everyone to see as they walked to the loos.

After dessert I went up to talk to the manager and explain the service we had and he really was not interested. His basic line was that it was a public holiday and that they were busy. Well I’m sorry that does not excused bad service. We paid out good money for our lunch (our total bill was more that $400) and we copped extremely bad service and mediocre food.

The manager said he could give us a 7% discount (which was the Familigia club member) which I advised I had joined up that morning so it wasn’t really a discount and then 15% was added for public holiday surcharge.

This restaurant was supposed to be an “authentic Italian experience” however the only authentic Italian thing there was the Ducati motorcycle parts on the walls.

I would give 0 stars if I could. It doesn’t even deserve one star.