La Famiglia — Restaurant in Melbourne

We went there on Mother's day for lunch. As expected, the place was jam packed with people, and we had no bookings. But they were able to offer us seats outside the main restaurant hall. We gladly accepted the offer!

We ordered chicken schintzel and chicken tikka and a small pizza. The pizza was excellent and gets a five star rating. The schnitzel and the chips with it were OK and get 3 stars, but it is leaning more towards the side of higher stars...Maybe 3 and half stars to be fair.

Now the chicken tikka! I will be honest and will give it no stars at all. Why? First, because of the price. $30 plus, something like $34 or $33.... Now we did see the price before ordering it, but seeing the price we were expecting something that would justify the price, which the Chicken Tikka absolutely did not! It was a few half-cooked boneless pieces of chicken, which were literally swimming in a pool of chicken tikka sauace, and within that pool of sauce there was a small mound of rice. Just how on earth we eat the rice without throwing every kernal of rice in the sauce? You touch the mound and it begins to crumble! Now I am familiar with how chicken tikka is made, and this by no means was anything like any chicken tikka i had ever tried. It was something else. Not sure what it was, but it was certainly not chicken tikka. Perhaps, on its own the dish wasn't too bad, but naming it chicken tikka just made it... well, quite unacceptable.

In a nutshell, if you are after pizzas or something Western or Italian, by all means give it a go. The place is nice, the staff is friendly and the prices are quite reasonable. However, if you want to try any of the Indian or other oriental dishes on the menu, be ready...

Came here a couple times to order pasta, specifically bolognaise and then gnocchi another time, both extremely watery and tasteless but today I felt like giving them another chance and trying another pasta dish. Went to get served, the disrespect and attitude I was served was absolutely atrocious I was disgusted. When I went up the girl serving was having a chat with a customer who wasn’t ordering anything, which is fine I’m a patient person and happy to wait but as I’m waiting she kept giving me creasy looks. I waited a good 3 mins thinking she will finish soon, I’m also not a confrontational person but after 5 mins with my daughter standing with me patiently hungry and waiting, I asked her politely if she is serving. She quickly turned to me in an extremely rude and belittling way, raised her voice and sarcastically said “YES I AM SERVING BUT I AM HAVING A CONVERSATION WITH ANOTHER CUSTOMER AND DIDNT WANT TO INTERRUPT HER”. Shocked I turned around and said don’t worry about it, I don’t want to be served here anymore and walked off. As someone who’s worked in this industry before; when you see a customer waiting that long, you can nicely say I’m so sorry, do you mind if I quickly serve this customer who’s been waiting a while and I’ll be right back with you, but NO. I think she cares more about her eyelashes and 3 bottles of foundation on her face then losing her job. Learn...

Went in today to order 2 x pasta & 2 x pizza from the meal deals they provide. Pizza deal states traditional pizza however, I asked the young lass if it was possible to change one of the pizza from traditional to a herb with cheese. Her direct answer put bluntly was "NO". I stated that it would cost less to make my pizza rather than a normal traditional pizza. There was hardly anybody inside the restaurant so I thought this simple request would of been honoured. I said to this lady with blonde hair & glasses that you are willing to forego an $80 plus order. To my amazement, she said "YES" ::. Wow, has customer service dissapeared. Unfortunately for this restsurant, we had planned a birthday for next wednesday there for at least 16 people. This will not happen now because of your rudeness, inability to cater for a simple request & your dismissive nature that you obviously did not need my business. Businesses are always crying out for people to eat out but your overall attitude today has me concluded that you will no longer ever get my or families business again. Very dissapointing...