Criniti's Kotara — Restaurant in Newcastle-Maitland

Being a restaurant manager myself it is extremely uncomfortable to write a negative review in fear of sounding like a "Karen" but unfortunately our experience was a let down. (I also never write reviews but this was necessary). For the amount of money we spent on our dinner it was not worth the prices we paid. Which was unfortunate because our friends we dined with have had impressive food her before, but even they were disappointed by our recent experience.

Luckily the top shelf whisky was good👍

The lamb ribs were tough and chewy (ribs should pretty much fall off the bone) my partner couldn't even finish them. The pasta Aglio e olio was the worst pasta I've ever eaten, my friend and I just straight out chose not to eat it (which is huge for me because I HATE wasting food) ,we even ordered more olive oil to try and give it some kind of moisture or flavor but it was just terrible. My partner is a chef (who was also dining with us) His opinion is that with such a massive menu he feels for the chef's in that kitchen, there are just way too many dishes to expect the quality to stay consistent across everything. Over 300 dishes isn't as impressive as it seems on paper. It would be hard to keep up with that amount of dishes in that kitchen.

But all in all the most unimpressive part about it came from how much the floor staff (and I am assuming a manager) packed up the restaurant around us. It wasn't even a case that we were the last ones there, they still sat down another table and let them order while still packing up the tables and chairs around us. The wait staff also just all sat around staring at us rudely waiting for us to finish. This is by far a lack of professionalism. It's just not a respectful way to make your customers dine. If you have too many wait staff on, knock most of them off and keep a core crew back to finish the pack up after the lasts guests have finished.

We understand the more outside dining area was packed up, fair enough, but literally packing up around your last customers and sitting there watching them while they try to finish is rude, I'm sorry to say. I completely understand the feeling at the end of the night you just want to finish and get out of there and it sucks waiting for the last ones to leave, but I would never let my front of house staff do this to our customers. Bad customer service there.

Something needs to change for sure. But! I have to say the young waitress with the brown hair who served us was patient and kind, thankyou.

Ps A $5 surcharge to use cars is absolutely...

If I could give 0 stars for service I would. Table 241 For my Mums birthday this was a very, very disappointing experience. For a Sunday that’s not busy at all, this will be my first time and last time I dine here.

From the start the girl who was serving us was completely rude and had a bad attitude. We were seated and given menus then we waited about 10 minutes for our drinks to be taken after my mum asked for a drink she said we can’t do that we ran out of ginger ale, which is fine BUT there are other ways to inform someone that you have run out of something. After that we waited another 20 minutes for our main meals to be taken she then said the meal I wanted and could only really have they couldn’t do either cause they ran out, again you can always inform me about that in a polite way. I waited about 30 minutes for a bag of rocket, 6 tiny slices of lamb and 6 slices of avocado and a few bits of sun dried tomato to be served to me.

When the drinks came out and are being placed on the table by the staff, holding it by the rim of the glass where you drink from not from the base of the glass like it should be. We finished our meals and asked one of the guys for some take away containers, we waited and waited and waited and I can see the staff standing at the counter chatting, so we asked another staff member for take away containers he brought them out quite quickly.

We asked someone for desert menus, waited and waited until my mum when up to order another drink and desert, when the guy brought her drink out he didn’t clear the plates that were in front of us for at least 30-40minutes until I moved it all the plates on a vacant table next to us, which still weren’t cleared until after we had left.

We had waited at least another 20 minutes until we had just had enough and went up to pay for our bill and asked for the tiramisu to be removed, the rude staff had then gone on to say that it takes time to make which we were never told, then made the comment it’s fine I guess one of the other staff will eat it then.

We had honestly been there for 2 hours most of it waiting to be served, also noticing that multiple tables were waiting and getting fed up and going up to the staff and asking them to come and take orders. Really disappointed by...

Absolutely awful, in every way possible. A complete waste of money (a basic bolognese was an exorbitant $36) and dreadful experience. I'll never return. This is my first review ever, of anything, such was how woeful this was. We went out of desperation, as the only pizza 'restaurant' open on Boxing Day, after our alternative reservation got canceled last-minute. Upon arrival, they had no reference to our booking (which identified we were there for a birthday) when we arrived and were put "out the back" (manager's words) beside a table with other children. An inauspicious start and I should have gone with my gut on this and bailed out. In short, everything thereafter was awful. We'd brought a cake for the birthday celebration, and one waitress did say happy birthday to my daughter when she asked to put it in the fridge. Our order was taken with reasonable efficiency, albeit without any sort of positive interaction or cheer. Food was mixed: one decent pizza, lasagne not bad, but two grim pasta dishes - just tasted... cheap, and blatantly non-Italian (while being grossly over-priced). Our margaritas were served in plastics - seemingly glass was again a stretch too far. When we'd finished, things got worse. Staff were oblivious and after waiting an age for them, I cleared the table myself, literally bringing our 4 plates back up to their counter. We had to ask for the cake to be brought out; it was delivered in the bag we'd given to them (did it even get to a fridge?), handed over without either a word nor any plates or cutlery. So we decided to take our birthday cake home, where we should have stayed in the first place. As if it couldn't get worse, when I complained to the manager, he argued with me! He wanted to know which staff-member to blame, and persisted in this when I refused to throw them under the bus. I had to stop his defensive posturing and explain that this was the moment where he, as manager, apologised for the shambles that he had overseen. He didn't. I walked out. I suggest you...