Martini and Co | Werribee — Restaurant in Melbourne

I had high hopes for this place. Everything about it sounded right up my alley; a great menu, good cocktails etc. What a shame it didn't come close to living up to expectations.

We were there for dinner for 5 on a Friday night. The service initially was good, with 3 different waiters asking to take our drink and meal orders within minutes of sitting down; we hadn't even had a chance to look at a menu yet. Once we finally ordered, we waited patiently for nearly an hour, no sign of food, so we asked if someone could follow it up for us. The young waiter came back to our table and sheepishly told us he had forgotten to put our order in! We were hungry, so disappointed, but understand mistakes happen, it's all about how it is handled from there. Unfortunately for Martini & Co, they seem to have no idea about customer service. While waiting for almost another hour for our meals to finally arrive, we watched the owner grovelling at a table next to us where a couple of locals doctors were dining. With a busy, full restaurant on a Friday night, he was paying no attention to any of his other patrons, but happy to shower the Drs with drinks and attention...meanwhile, nobody came near us to even apologise for their mistake. We were still hopeful that the meals may make up a little for the bad service and that they would compensate when the bill came.

The food was OK (which is the only reason I didn't give a 1 star review). We had a mixture of salads, pizza, hamburgers, curry and nachos. Certainly not fantastic, but nice enough. For a cocktail bar though, the cocktails were disappointing. Their 'famous' mojito was average at best, and I also ordered an aperol spritz which was OK. I expected more for a restaurant who markets themselves as a cocktail bar as well.

Still time to redeem themselves at bill time. You guessed it, no discount on our bill after waiting almost 2 hours for food! We asked for the manager, he explained he had planned on discounting our bill once we came to the register; he then gave us a measly 10% discount. I normally would have complained, but we had already all decided we would never come back by this stage, so didn't bother.

If I was you, I also wouldn't bother. They market themselves well, but have no idea about customer service. Far better restaurant in the area where you can enjoy good...

Not impressed. We were two couples and spent $250 on basic meals and drinks. The menus were dirty with food and drinks spilled on them. Surely these can be wiped down when it is quiet - which it was that night. First off i ordered a glass of French bubbles. It was completely flat. not a single moving bubble. I told the waiter and he brought another glass that was better but still obviously had been sitting in the bottle longer than it should have been. I couldn't be bothered sending it back again. Our second round of 3 drinks took over 20 mins to arrive. 5 times staff came over to see how our meals were going, one after the other. It was very obtrusive and we told every one of them we were still waiting for our drinks. I looked around. 5 small tables of guests. 3 waitresses leaning on the bar talking to the 3 staff behind the bar watching one person make our drinks. We all had buffalo wings with blue cheese sauce. The meat was so dry and chewy. The sauce was disgusting. Never tasted a blue cheese sauce so bad. Two diners had burgers that had very dry bacon, like it was cured dried meat. They told the waiter and all he said was "we havent heard that before". they didn't eat the fries or onion rings that came with it as they were bad too. One meal was calamari salad which was fine. I had the nachos with bolognaise. It was absolutely disgusting. I have no idea how this basic dish can be done so badly. I barely ate it. I told the waiter how terrible it was and he asked (After the table had finished their meals) "Do you want something else?" Seriously, after dinner had finished? I said no, it was disgusting and he said he would talk to the chef. He never came back to our table except to give us the bill. No discount was offered. We will never be back and would tell our friends and family to never dine at this place. With 14 years hospitality experience and travelling a lot this place needs a lot of...

I ordered a scotch fillet - the steak was cooked as ordered but the broccolini was so hard I couldn't cut it with a steak knife. Don't complain to the waiters though as the manager at Werribee is in denial. When the waiter who was quite polite was passing on the feedback, the manager was shaking his head, laughing and not only gave the impression he thought I was a complete liar, he then pointed at me to confirm it was me. Another diner with us had a caterpillar in her meal. The service staff avoided us like the plague which is why I gave 1 for service. The manager hovered around our table and I asked if he was the manager. He said yes. After pointing out the caterpillar and demonstrating a steak knife could not cut through the wooden broccolini - he lacked any decency to apologise or rectify the issue in any way. He then made excuses that the vegetables they receive come pre-washed as if it was someone else's fault entirely other than those preparing the food. I gave him the inedible veggies and suggested he take them back to the kitchen to show them. Surprisingly he did, but then he appeared in the kitchen doorway pointed me out to all of the kitchen staff and made us all feel pretty low. Reading other reviews, the manager Shibbaz seems to be a key driver of complaints. He certainly is a toxic leader with zero customer service attributes and the young staff he is in charge of certainly deserve better. We won't be back.

Also please note GF meals attract additional cost but it is unlikely due to the health of another member of our party the following day that the pasta was actually gluten free.

For the money there are much better options in the area, that want your business, act professionally and care about what food they provide to customers. Shibbaz, a middle finger...