The NGV Garden Restaurant is in a beautiful location, with a great view and the food is delicious; the perfect setting for a pre-theatre meal. However, all of this was ruined by the extreme rudeness & lack of professionalism displayed by one of the wait staff; who appeared to be in a position of seniority (Diane).

My mother and I had finished our meals and were wishing to order a coffee before we left. I caught the eye of a lovely member of the waitstaff (Phillipa)as she walked by our table and asked if we could order coffees. She took our order and moved to walk away before Diane abruptly stood in her way and started to berate her for taking our coffee order. Phillipa explained that we, the customers, had asked her as she walked by. Diane loudly replied to this, in reference to us, ‘Well THEY can wait!’. We were shocked at the pure unprofessionalism & rudeness of this apparent senior staff member! Not only was it abhorrent to speak to her colleague like that, infront of the whole restaurant, but to refer to paying customers in such a derogatory way is not what we expected from a place of such stature.

To follow this, our coffees took 20 minutes to be served and my mothers coffee was cold as it had been left to sit on the bench for 5 minutes while my coffee was being made. Horrible service.

Despite the delicious food we were utterly disgusted by this behaviour and will not be returning to the Garden Restaurant nor recommending it to any family or friends.