SIMPLE Italian Cucina Pizzeria Perth Waterfront — Restaurant in Perth

On Monday just gone (18th Aug), as we have had family visiting Perth all the way from New Zealand we decided to spend the day taking our family out site seeing Kings Park, and Elizabeth Quay. It was quite a beautiful sunny day and it even got warm so after enjoying the sights we looked for somewhere to lunch, to relax and cool down. We wanted a menu that had something for everyone’s taste. We at first opted to go to The Island because there quite a nice variation since everyone was hungry for differing cuisines but because my younger sister wanted pizza and my dads hips were seizing up and needed a rest we decided to take our group of 10 to Simple Italian as it was closest to my Dad’s carpark at Barrack St.

Upon walking up closer to the venue we realised that the restaurant was located upstairs. There was a sign mentioning a lift that was meant to be further to the back and yet it was unclear where it was located exactly for my dad to use so he instead took his time to climb the stairs. Upon first look into the restaurant it was lovely - wood dining furniture, wooden ceiling, ceiling to floor windows, splashes of magenta coloured velvet couches or booths. Unfortunately as you walk deeper inside you can feel that the room was stagnant, and stifling hot - most of the windows that could open out to the beautiful river were closed and there was no fan or AC on inside. Not very welcoming. No music either. Not that many people were dining there. Most tables empty - a couple here or there dotted around. And not much chatter. The ambience was just not there.

Then as we followed our female waitress who had decided to put us all the way towards the very corner of the restaurant in full sunlight at a strangely L-shaped table that had us seating at odd ends of the table not even facing each other we decided to try and open the windows which instantly allowed some of the area to cool down. And though that alleviated some discomfort we just couldn’t reconcile with facing away from one another and so we asked to be seated elsewhere in a cooler spot that made sense. My husband along with my mother in law went and asked the staff to move, they would search for a table that would better suit and though they found one table that would of worked, unfortunately one end of the table was pushed up to the window - so it had 9 instead of 10 chairs and settings. Instead we were sat at a very large U-shaped booth chair with velvety fabric which again I repeat the restaurant was very warm. The shame of having a big group inside a U-shaped table is that anyone further into the booth would be either stuck there or would force to have everyone get out if they needed to leave. The downside of our waitress would be she had no customer service. No warmth. No interpersonal skills whatsoever. I understand and appreciate she is Italian and Italian speaking but you should still be able to give good communication and service to the English speakers of this country. Another sad thing we would notice of our service was there was no initial offer of table water for our group. It would take 10 mins for the waitress to come back to us to take our drinks order which we started with asking for water. As drinks came out and we started to receive more attention from the waitstaff things picked up a little more. We had to show her the food on the menu so she would know what we were wanting because she didn’t understand our English very well, such as a “garden salad”.

The food was a whole other experience - Simply amazing! We ordered 3 pizzas - suprema/margharita/marina, 3 crab linguine’s, 1 fettuccine el ragu, 1 spaghetti alla pescatora, 1 lamb shank, 1 pollo ai pepperoni and 2 garden salads along with a stack of drinks. The pizzas were well beautifully cooked, the pasta dishes authentic and flavoursome! The lamb was juicy but my daughter thought it was small. The pollo ai pepperoni my dad enjoyed but could not finish til later. Overall with the food - that was a standout!

The service was lacking but I do believe it can be picked up....

If I could rate this a 0 I would, due to the poor food and service we received. We came for the first time last week to celebrate a 40th birthday, and it was far from celebratory for the birthday girl. The waitress who took our order never repeated the order and left out a Barramundi (ordered two). Upon every one receiving their dishes it was noted from the waitress she never added it so one of our guests was left waiting until almost everyone had finished eating before receiving his meal. I had ordered the crab linguini (which I have had numerous times at the location on Murray St) only to receive a massive plate with a little portion of overcooked pasta which looked like a can of tomatoes had just been poured over the top (as per photo). The pasta was so overcooked that it was beyond mush and inedible, the waitress took it to the kitchen for them to dry and agreed it had been overcooked. Was offered a new one but by that point I had been put off my food. Three of our guests ordered the lobster pasta which was very undercooked (beyond al-dente). Coming from an italian background we know how pasta should and shouldn't be cooked, and this was far from how it should have been made! However rather than have four dishes taken back to the kitchen in total the pasta was consumed but not enjoyably or willingly - including the birthday girl. After the disaster with our mains the birthday cake was brought to the table with the candles lit and just placed on the table. There was no singing or song played or anything to celebrate the birthday girls birthday (which it specified online that it was $3pp to bring in an external cake, use of candles and singing). We then had to ask the kitchen for a knife for the birthday girl to be able to cut her own cake as it's tradition to cut the cake just before the bottom and make a wish). They were against it due to 'liabilities' etc but we explained this is pretty custom then after she cut it they took the cake back to the kitchen to cut. The pieces came out very large and some of our guests were diabetic so we had to cut them a lot smaller ourselves. The staff offered $60 off the bill as 'compensation' for the terrible meals as well as limoncello shots for the table. Majority of the guests were over 60 so we're unsure why they would think we would want to be drinking 'shots' nor were we wanting any compensation etc. All we wanted was to have a good night out celebrating a 40th birthday milestone at a nice restaurant with good food and good company, but instead we walked away feeling very disappointed and will not be returning! Have also noticed recent reviews of the same crab linguine pasta looking NOTHING like what I received on the night, so WHY was mine made the way it was and others plated completely different??? (attached a photo from someone else's recent review that looks NOTHING to what I received). We have also passed along our feedback to management both floor and general who seem to have NO communication on what happens when it's someone's birthday and was told it must be a language barrier of poor communication? Was also told there's timers for the pastas made so what happened to my pastas timer, did it magically just stop working...

Updated after response from management. It's such a pity that this restaurant doesn't take customer feedback seriously even though they say they do. If they have checked their cameras timing they would have known what their response was, was definitely not accurate, and the cameras don't show how rude they were. There should be no excuse for bad service. Extremely disappointed in Simple at EQ. When we walked in we were greated with a smile and shown to a table, however the restaurant was very quiet and asked if we could sit at another table, which we were told them that they are all reserved. We sat down and after around 20 mins were asked if we would like some water which we said yes. Over 10 mins later no water. Then we were asked by another waiter if we would like water and he got it for us straight away. Another 15 mins went by and someone else came to the table to take our order as the waiter that for as the water said he will get someone to take out order. Finally out order was taken and within 5 minutes one of the meals was coming out without the other so we told them we wanted both meals to come out at the same time. Finally they both came out the same time and we were very disappointed in the quality of the food. Very disappointed for the price and the service we will definitely definitely NOT be going back there again. I WOULD DEFINITELY SAY IT IS LESS THAN "SIMPLE...