Criniti's Southbank — Restaurant in Melbourne

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...

went in for dinner at criniti’s in southbank for a special occasion. the booking was at 7:30 and we walked in the restaurant at exactly that time and waited 30 minutes to be seated despite us booking a week in advanced, and other tables who booked at a later time were sat immediately. we sat at our table at 8:00. the lady took 10 mins to come to us to take the order and the order was taken at 8:10 for both food and drinks. the drinks were a cocktail, jug of soft drink and some orange juice and it arrived at 8:20, and the food arrived at 8:35 which isn’t a bad waiting time however the food was taken to the wrong table and to make it a little worse, the table of 2 on our right sat down after us, and was served almost immediately and there food and drinks were delivered to them within a total of 25 mins, and they left before our food had even arrived. the service needs to be improved immensely, and there needs to be more communication between the host and the wait staff, they were lovely when the order was taken but in terms of work adequate, needs a significant amount of improving. i also noticed that a fair few other tables food kept getting served to the wrong table, but on the bright side of things the food smashed it out of the park, it was all amazing, we ordered:

fettuccine prawn alfredo $35 garlic prawns, cream, parmesan, shallots & parsley

4 seasons pizza $28 napoli sauce, mozzarella, artichokes, ham, sopressa salami, mushrooms & basil

tagliata di manzo $49 sliced msa scotch fillet served with rocket, cherry tomatoes, parmesan, gremolta, balsamic glaze & fresh lemon

sticky date pudding $17 hot sticky date pudding glazed with hot butterscotch sauce served with vanilla gelato & criniti’s mascarpone cream

the pasta was amazing and all the flavours that were in there just worked really well together. the tagliata di manzo which is basically just steak on some rocket was really nice, only down-fall was i ordered medium-rare but was brought out medium-well, didn’t bother me too much however still enjoyable and to top it, was even given a discount for the miscommunication. the highlight of the steak was the sauce, the al capone sauce which had prawns and octopus in it was sensational. the pizza was also quite nice and the way the dough was so soft but also really crispy was a gold star for me. also love a good sticky date and this was done quite well, however just wish there was a bit more butterscotch sauce.

overall i would recommend this place for the food but the service definitely needs improving, is also a bit on the pricy side of things ($180 for 2 people) but i guess that’s what you get for basically dinning in the heart of melbourne. will soon be back to try more of the items...

NEVER HEARD A “SORRY” WHEN THEY DAMAGED OUT BIRTHDAY CAKE.

We chose this restaurant to celebrate a special birthday, but the experience was deeply disappointing. The staff, including the manager, demonstrated a complete lack of professionalism and service awareness. Our birthday cake have been damaged (dropped) but the waitress dismissed it as “just a scratch,” offering neither an apology nor any sense of responsibility. At no point did anyone attempt to resolve the issue or show any concern for our experience. Instead, we were left waiting. The staff were even displaying disrespectful behavior such as eye-rolling. Our celebration was ruined. The attitude showed by the manager was unacceptable. We feel sorry for a restaurant having a service team like this.

Second edit (21/7/2025) AFTER A DISRESPECTFUL REPLY FROM THE OWNER:

I don’t think you truly understand the main point of my complaint, just like your service team. A birthday cake is called that because it carries special meaning: it celebrates one of the most important days of the year, THE BIRTHDAY. Your offer of a generic dessert is completely unacceptable and feels like an insult, showing that you’re not taking this issue seriously at all.

The only acceptable solution at that time is a full refund for the cake. Of course we would wanted you to restore our cake back to what it was when we arrived, but we both know that's not gonna happen. Frankly, we’ve been more than reasonable in asking for a refund instead of requesting a brand-new replacement.

And by the way, calling your offer a “gesture of goodwill” is not only misleading, but also untrue. That’s not what your manager said when the incident happened. Please don’t make up explanations after the fact—doing so only makes us even more upset. It feels like you're trying to cover things up instead of taking real accountability.

So far, I’ve seen no genuine apology or acknowledgment of the emotional impact this has had. I feel extremely disrespected and disappointed. This was meant to be a special occasion, and your handling of it has left us angry and hurt.

Your response clearly reflects an unprofessional approach to handling customer complaints, no wonder your service team behaves in a way that only escalates problems instead of...