Kaprica — Restaurant in Melbourne

[TLDR: Undercooked food, caused stomach pains. Don't bother booking, they're not gonna give you your table. 1hr+ wait for food.]

Literally the worst experience I've ever had with a restaurant. I've never complained about any restaurant like this before and I don't usually write reviews but if I can save a couple people from coming to this place, I will.

For context, I've worked as a waitress, then hostess and supervisor for an incredibly busy restaurant smack bang in the middle of the CBD - I know busy and how hard it can get on those shifts which is why I tried to be as patient and as understanding as possible, but I am genuinely floored by how appalling this service was.

I booked a table for 3 at 7pm for the outdoor/alfresco area. When I got there, my friend who came before us was sitting on this 2 seater table at the front and was told to wait as our table "wasn't ready yet". My friends were happy to sit down and wait as we thought we'd only have to wait a few minutes. Our table only had glasses and no water (every other table around us had water). This bald guy who I presume is the owner came up to us and asked if I wanted an extra chair as I was sharing the booth with my friend and water for our table. I said yes and he bought me a STOOL - for this tiny little table, and never came back with any water.

Fast forward 40 minutes - we still hadn't gotten our table we BOOKED for and people who walked in and came in after us were getting tables in the area we were after and ordering/getting their food. Within this time frame I had asked the hostess multiple times about our table and she kept saying "it's not ready, the people on your table won't leave". At this point it's 7:40 and it was getting ridiculous, we were all frustrated, hungry and annoyed. After 40 minutes of waiting, we still didn't have our table, water or even a proper chair for myself. I was done waiting for our table and told the hostess, that we were just happy to stay at this small table as we just wanted to order.

We ordered 3 colas, a garlic pizza for the entree and 3 mains including 2x lamb ragu's and a prawn spaghetti with chilli.

After ordering at 7:50, our drinks took 30 minutes to arrive. 30. Minutes. For 3 BOTTLES of cola and another 30 minutes for our entree to come out. So to help you wrap your head around this - it took an hour for our ENTREE to come out. Ridiculous. At this point I was still trying to be optimistic and I thought "oh it's busy so the food MUST be good, right?" right??. WRONG. When our mains FINALLY came out, I quickly realised from the first bite out of my meal that my pasta was undercooked. I tried to persevere, hoping that it was just those few pieces but it genuinely got to the point where it was INEDIBLE, the pasta was so undercooked, I could poke it with my fork and it was so stiff.

I could tell by my friend's face that her meal was also undercooked. At this point, I didn't care about complaining or seeming annoying anymore, there was no way I was gonna pay $30 for some inedible, undercooked pasta I waited over an hour for. I told the hostess I wanted it taken off our bill and after talking to the owner for a few minutes, she came back and said she "couldn't" take both FULL, barely touched meals off our bill (it's not her fault and she was incredibly understanding about our situation). But to the owner, wow what ridiculous customer service you have. Judging from the other bad reviews - and his responses - this is clearly not a place that cares about their patrons.

I'm not even that mad about the table, the drinks or the "chair", but waiting an hour+ for UNDERCOOKED food? I draw the line there. My friend has a digestive disorder and is immunocompromised. The day after we ate here, she and I both experienced stomach pains and cramps from those few bites we took. Undercooked food can pose a severe health risk to any person. We're lucky we didn't get salmonella but I wouldn't take the risk here, food poisoning is not fun for anyone. This is not a restaurant I'd recommend to even my worst...

TL;DR: incompetent staff, stuffy atmosphere, filthy restaurant.

(EDIT: What conceitful management! Their sarcastic response that they “guess [I] won’t be coming back again ❤️” demonstrates this restaurant’s complete lack of attention and care for their patrons. I attach a screenshot of the comment they have deleted, obviously attempting to hide their unprofessional attitude.)

Worst birthday experience! I rarely write reviews, but where do I start with how bad this restaurant was?

We dined at Kaprica for my friend’s celebration of her 21st birthday on Saturday 24th August 2024.

We made the booking a week in advance for five people at 8 p.m. through their online booking system. When we arrived, the waitress stated that she had no record of our booking and there was no space for us inside.

Upon showing her our email confirmation, she then magically found a free table for us in the upstairs section - at around 8.15 p.m.

When seated at the table it was grimy and wet, taking various members of the waitstaff 10 minutes to clean it collectively. Such was the lateness of our sitting that the waitress came to take our orders at only 8.45 p.m.

We also noticed that the room was very loud and echo-ey, very hot and too dimly lit - even for our young eyes!

Of the five of us, we ordered focaccia bread and olives for our entrée, three pizzas and two pasta dishes for our mains, and a bottle of prosecco.

I went to the bathroom after ordering dinner and it was filthy! Paper towel was strewn across the room.

The waitress informed us that the restaurant had run out of focaccia bread - that was fine, we could order pizzettas instead.

When the olives arrived they were neither cold nor warm as expected but boiling hot! I almost burnt myself with an olive of all things!

15 minutes later, at around 9 p.m., the waitress informed us that they had run out of dough for pizzas, so one of our pizzas had to be swapped for a pasta dish.

What sort of pizza restaurant runs out of pizza dough!?

Maybe if they had enough focaccia bread, they would not have had to offer pizzetta to everyone - to the detriment of their pizza-making capacity.

At around 9.25 p.m., an hour and a half after arriving, the main course finally arrived. To their credit, the food served was very nice.

We devoured our food and by 9.50 p.m., I took the waitress aside and asked her to bring out a cake and some cupcakes that we had brought along with candles to celebrate the birthday and if we could order some coffees.

The waitress informed me that they could only offer espressos and not any other type of hot drink - disappointing as half of our table prefer hot chocolates.

A few minutes later, two waitresses brought out the cake and placed it before my friend. Not only had they not cleared the table or brought any other crockery/cutlery, they also forgot to bring out the cupcakes and, most importantly, they did not place the candles in the cake!

My friend went downstairs to enquire as to the whereabouts of the cupcakes and candles only to be told that the waitstaff could not find them and had no idea what she was talking about.

10 minutes later, at around 10 p.m., a waitress brought us the candles and the cupcakes and said that the waitstaff did not think we would want the candles in the cake as the restaurant had received so many cakes recently that came without candles. I am not sure what rock that waitress walked out from under but who does not put candles in a birthday cake?

When asked to bring the box for the cake out so we could take leftovers home, they also lost the box before finding it on top of the bin and returning it to us with suspicious stains on it.

Clumsy from start to finish - I would not recommend this restaurant to anybody. I had high hopes and they were all let down.

The only saving grace is the admittedly very delicious food - I compliment the chef for his ability - but is halfway-decent food really worth all the trouble to eat it?...

Booked in the courtyard for our anniversary, drove an hour to the restaurant to be told they’d moved our table into the alcove in the front of the building - smooshed next to another table so we couldn’t actually sit there, even if we wanted to - on the street. Hostess explained that a large party had wanted the courtyard so they’d shifted everyone else out with no notice whatsoever.

When I asked why there had been no notice or consideration of the occasion we’d booked for when relocating our table, we were told by the hostess that she didn’t write the bookings out that day, and that was sit on the street or leave. Explained that we didn’t blame her, specifically, but were confused and a bit frustrated at the situation.

My partner and I asked if there was any way we could get a semi-nice table somewhere else, even if it wasn’t in the courtyard. We were adamantly told no, that the big party took precedence, and requests to speak to whoever was running the shift were denied immediately. Again restated to the hostess that we didn’t mind if we didn’t end up in the courtyard, we just didn’t want to sit 10cm away from a table of 3, where we couldn’t even walk past to get to our seats, and in the cold. The hostess said she’d check again inside.

After 10mins of standing in the cold waiting, hostess offered us a tiny table right in the doorway. Again, told to take it or leave. As this was an occasion we asked if there was any other option, wasn’t bothered to wait a little if needed, and made it clear we weren’t expecting anyone to be uprooted from their seat or moved, just a different table when available. Could also see 3 empty tables, clean and set, that were not directly in the doorway. But again told no, if we didn’t take the table we’d have to leave.

My partner and I stood outside trying to figure out what to do, and the hostess then offered us a table at the foot of the busy stairwell, despite the other empty tables still being available. Hostess was adamant that this spot would not be busy at all; while she was telling us this, 4 people walked past and were so close I was worried they’d trip over the chair.

We asked if we could take a second to decide what we wanted to do as the hostess was quite pushy - she also explained it was her anniversary too, which was somehow meant to help us understand that being shafted in an uncomfortable spot to fork out a decent amount of money for dinner was ok. Patience had started to wane, here, but the travel and occasion made us feel like it wasn’t as simple as leaving to try and find somewhere else.

After another 15mins, offered a rickety table in the courtyard with a huff and an attitude. Offered a free glass of wine, which came after 20mins. Hostess came out after 20 more and explained our booking was nearly over, but she would put in our order and request it was rushed. We explained to her that we didn’t want to rush the dinner due to it being an occasion, happy to keep within a booking time but we hadn’t been seated for 50mins of our booking, had been waiting outside for 30-40, and we now had 40mins left.

Overall, caused a ridiculous amount of tension and a lot of guilt placed on us for not being complacent with poor attitude and effort to rectify a situation. Despite having been polite to the hostess while there and making it clear that we were appreciative of her efforts, service and interactions were rude and clipped. Ended up leaving as we didn’t feel like dropping $150+ to eat in...