Fratellino - Richmond — Restaurant in Melbourne

Our experience at Fratellino in Richmond was filled with so much promise! The place was packed, the pizzas looked good and the aroma was amazing... unfortunately that's where the good experience ended. As we sat down and waited about 10 minutes to be offered a drink and given a menu, it was clear that the wait staff were run off their feet. We waited a further half an hour for our food order to be taken, and then a further hour and a half for our food to arrive. When it finally arrived it left a lot to be desired. We ordered two pasta dishes and a salad. The salad we asked to be our starter to share, it arrived after our mains. The creamy pasta my husband ordered was more like a soup, and the seafood pasta I ordered included clams that hadn't opened and therefore likely to be off. Twice we let wait staff know about the unopened clams, they both apologized, but no action was taken to let the kitchen know or any other concession for the poor meal. The only saving grace was the company...

It looked like the nicest restaurant in two blocks of walking, and I love Italian. I was greeted and seated by friendly staff. My experience was going well. What I soon felt was the floor vibrates so much with footsteps that my phone kept awakening, but otherwise atmosphere is open and rustic. The food was fresh and appetising. However, it was not cooked like Italians would do it - I had about 1/4 cup of garlic, an oil soup at the bottom of my pasta, not much salt and only 4 prawns in a prawn pasta special. It did have a nice flavour after I added salt. Service was pleasant to start with, but after my main was cleared they forgot I existed. I sat there for about 20 mins waiting to order another drink. There also mustn't be any dessert menu, as I didn't get one, or even get asked if I'd like a coffee. So, in the end the service dropped off exponentially. They did bring me my 2nd drink without delay, but they didn't go out of their way to apologise at any...

I'm sorry to say we had a really disappointing experience here, hopefully we just came on a particularly bad night. The waite and kitchen staff were run off their feet, clearly not enough for the full restaurant. We waited half an hour before they took our order (and only because we waved the waiter over) then it took nearly 1.5 hours for our food to arrive. My meal (Spaghetti Carbonara) was of a soup consistency and my wife's meal had off clams that hadn't opened (a sign that the seafood is off) . We reported this to two waite staff who took no action. We ended up leaving after 2.5 hours with two half eaten meals and feeling queasy. They were good enough to remove the off meal from the bill and apologised for the service, but I can't help but feel they should have told us upfront if the kitchen was so far behind. People on all the tables around us were complaining of the same delays and lack of service so we weren't...