Viva Cyprus Restaurant — Restaurant in Paphos Municipality

This evening I had my worst dining experience ever! I read reviews and was excited to go to Viva.

My partner and I ordered a full bottle of the house wine,

I ordered a starter of tzatziki and pita bread for us to share. I also ordered a full-size Greek salad for my dinner, and he ordered prawns on rice.

As we ordered, my partner told the server calamari, then he paused and said, “no, wait I got that wrong. I don’t want calamari I want prawns”. We both laughed at his mistake, as he hates calamari! We told the server, “good thing we caught that and corrected it!”

We only waited a few minutes and we were served our white wine.

Within 15 minutes his meal came out. It was presented nicely and he said it tasted good. Our appetizer of tzatziki and pita bread was delivered at that time. I never seen my Greek salad though. The server never bothered to ask how our meal was, or if anything was lacking. My partner finished his entire meal within 20 minutes and I continue to eat pita bread as I waited for my salad. When my partner was finished, all plates were cleaned, including the empty tzatziki and pita bread plate.

We decided not to complain, as we didn’t want to bother them. We said to each other, “don’t worry about it, we will just pay for what we got and go.”

About 40 minutes after arriving at the restaurant, after our meals were completely finished and clean up, and we were finishing off the bottle of wine, suddenly a large plate of calamari, and the Greek salad arrived. We were in complete shock! We explain to him that we only ordered the prawn dish, not both as who would eat two entire meals for one person? He then asked if I still wanted the Greek salad. I explain to him that it was too late, my partner was finished, and we were ready to go. The server took the food back to the kitchen, what ensued was nothing short of shocking!!!

I heard yelling in the kitchen. Then the owner, “a scary looking man with crossed eyes and missing teath who was dressed like a homeless person, came out directly to our table and started yelling at me. It was so shocking, I did not know how to deal with it. I tried to explain to him that his server had made a mistake. His server could not speak English very well. The owner continued to yell at us in front of all the other customers. Needless to say, we ask for our bill, paid and left quickly. It was a very disappointing and shocking experience!!!

I will never go back and highly recommend that you do not destroy your vacation time with such...

Shame you cannot leave 0 stars. Don’t get pulled by the sign saying 3 course meal for 12.50. Honestly not worth it much better places you can eat for the same price or a couple euros more.

Once sat down I kept getting asked if I wanted to move. Once ordering drinks from the young lady serving me I tried to order food to which she replied I only handle drinks. Finally the food man came. Was waiting for food for over 30 minutes where another gentleman kept bringing me bread that I was not eating. He kept leaving more on the table and saying sorry. When I asked what happened he kept bringing bread. Finally the food came which was obviously frozen and not cooked in the middle at all. You can see how dirty the bathrooms are. By the time another person asked us for desert on a trolley that they had been pushing around all night we just asked for the bill and waited another 20 minutes. They asked for a 9 percent service charge maybe that is 1 percent to every person I had to deal with or 9 percent on a scale of 100 on how good the experience was which would be generous. They were not surprised we didn’t pay that. Honestly this is a dirty smelly place that attracts similar people felt sorry for the older couple sat next to us who they kept trying to move to a table near us of a family that were non stop burping and farting as loud as possible. Go down the road you will find much better options even if you are looking for budget food. I wouldn’t even feed this to the stray cats in this area. Worse food in paphos and 0 service and hygiene. Kind of place you wipe your feet on...

We noticed the taverna a day before as was full of people and noticed the set menu at 11 euro. Went to Viva prepared to go to tourist trap but ended up very satisfied with the choice. My wife and I choose the 3 courses set menu with wine while our 3 sons went for the same menu without the wine at 11 euro...😀. My lamb kleftiko was very good, very tender and tasty. 2 of the boys had chicken kebab but they're only able to finish one of the two screws of meat, while the other had the BBQ ribs. Wife had chicken fillet. Starters were soup, tzatziki, garlic bread or village salad. Deserts (cheesecake, mars cake, Panna Cotta, Oreo cake) were surprisingly very good also. Service was nice and quick and after dinner we got a shot of brandy (me) and coffee liquor (wife) and juices (boys) complementary from the house. We ended up paying 65 + some tip to the waiter for which he seamed to be very happy. Ok, it's not Michelin restaurant but you eat really good at a very decent price. We went to set menu restaurants in many other places but never had such a good meal. For sure...