GiGi Tavola — Restaurant in Nice

TLDR: Unfortunately, my partner and I had a pretty terrible experience here. We waited so long for our food that we would have just walked away if we weren’t so intensely hungry.

We arrived with high hopes and were truly ready to have a lovely time, especially because my partner has a gluten allergy and this place touts their vast gluten-free options (pizzas, pastas, and more - possibly everything on the menu was naturally free of gluten or could be made that way - a rare treat for my sweetie). We arrived just before the rush, as a line formed just after we sat down - so be prepared for a little wait if you get there after 19:00. Everything started out great - there’s a great view of the port and the sunset over the forested hill just across the way, and the sky was putting on quite a show. Our waiter was very friendly and spoke English well (our French is embarrassingly terrible). Everything was going great.

We ordered the cheese platter (planche de fromages). I’m not sure if I’ve ever met a decent cheese that I didn’t like, and these all had a nice flavor, but neither of us could really enjoy 2/3 of them because of the histamine reaction causing pretty intense burning sensations in both of our mouths. I’ve eaten a lot of cheeses in my time living and traveling in Europe, and I’ve never experienced this intensity of burning cheese mold. Sadly, we ended up leaving half of the platter uneaten. Still, I can’t entirely blame that on the restaurant.

I ordered the gorgonzola gnocchi and my partner got the gluten-free lasagna. We didn’t receive them for more than 2 hours after we ordered them. We had arrived so hungry and tired after a day of hiking and swimming in the sea, and were so famished that I was trying to hold off a migraine. In the 2 hours we waited, our waiter busied himself with other tables and never gave us any reason for the wait or anything to help make the experience palatable, and by the time our food did come out, we were both so tired and uncomfortable that it was honestly a struggle to still want to eat it. Still, I managed to somewhat enjoy the gnocchi, though I still felt like my mouth was somewhat burned from the cheese - I couldn’t tell if the gorgonzola sauce was making it worse or if it was just from the earlier plate. The lasagna was a significant disappointment to my partner, as the sauce was quite sweet. She just kept thinking that it must be Chef Boyardee (a cheap American pasta in a can) in the kitchen.

When we finally received an explanation, our waiter apologized and blamed the kitchen staff, saying that they lost the ticket with our order. This seemed like a pretty lazy explanation to me, as I think a waiter’s job is to be the conduit between the kitchen and the patron, and he had so much time to notice that we were still waiting with an empty table, and getting more unhappy by the minute. A little while after we were seated, a couple sat at the table next to us, and were served in good time. Eventually, they left, and another couple was seated there. That second couple ordered, ate, and left before were got our plates. It was pretty appalling to me. I deeply regret going to this restaurant, which happens to be part of a restaurant group that owns quite a few other different types of places here in town, and I will avoid every one of them...

I don't do very many reviews because I find it's useless unless something was either outstanding or atrocious. I'm not demanding at the table, because I usually spend a decent amount of time evaluating where I'd have an upscale meal and I feel like professional front-and-back-of-house staff will know their jobs at highly-rated places. Unfortunately this was not my experience at Gigi in Nice. It was not a "4.4 star" experience at all, especially from the very beginning.

The manager was my waiter. He directed me with a non-directional wave to my choice of "table five or six" and then turned his back on me without saying WHICH tables were five or six. WTF?

Once I sat down I was ignored for a full eight+ minutes, based on the timestamp of a pic I took just before I came in and sat down.

When the manager/waiter finally returned he asked what I wanted to drink as well as took my food order. When my food came I pinged the (different) server about my drinks, but neither of my choices showed up until a THIRD staff member asked me if everything was all right. I said I was still waiting for my soda and water and when ONLY the soda showed up it was the wrong variety of what I'd ordered. I said nothing because I'd lost all faith in the service by then. I rate Gigi two stars rather than one for service because at least the woman who finally brought me water was energetic and paid some attention. Otherwise it'd be a one-star for service, too.

As an example, the manager/waiter literally didn't return to my table or anyone's for the next 45min, instead wandering around chatting socially with four other unoccupied staff who were tending to a puppy outside instead of customers. In any case, each of my dinner interactions were with someone different, and twice I only got service because I'd had to flag someone down. I'm not ignorably low maintenance, but this was extreme.

About the food: I ordered the "Escalope Milanaise" which is basically Italain schnitzel, sorta, which was accompanied by a bit of spaghetti Bolognese.

When it showed up, it was attractive, but as a result of being far too thinly flattened, the meat was dry as a bone 90% of the way through plus was entirely flavorless. The Bolognese was equally flavorless. I don't mean low on flavor--I mean there was nearly none. Italian food isn't supposed to be flavorless, as I'm sure you know, but apparently they don't.

I ordered the "Moelleux au Chocolat" (chocolate lava cake) for dessert and while it tasted like chocolate, it was room temperature!! Two out of three points: It was cake; it was chocolate, but that's all. Again...WTF???

Dear Reader, I'm in Europe twice a year and am the least "American" American you'll find there. It's a point of pride to have happily acclimated to European slow-paced norms a long time ago, but I don't take being ignored OR being served poorly very well. I don't want to take more than an hour to dine simply because I had to engage with staff rather than they engage w/me at each turning point of a meal.

Gigi Tavola is a tourist trap, somewhat highly rated due to its premium position, but that's the only premium thing about it. If you want Italian, do yourself a favor and visit ANY of the other three restaurants on that same side...

1h and 30 mins wait for a pizza that never came 😅...

For those who want more context (and time to read) down below 👇🏻

I read through the high reviews on google and set my expectations high and being myself gluten intolerant and here on holiday, I asked a couple of local friends (who never tried the place before) to go and try this pizza.

We booked a table as we had tried to eat here the night before but the place was packed.

We had a table reserved for 20 and waited around 20 minutes to be asked for our order by the maitre (understandable as the restaurant was busy). We ordered 3 pizza (1 gluten free). After 1 hour waiting we asked the maitre for the pizza and he answered they were about to be served. After further 15 mins we asked another waitress as we were still waiting. Unlike the maitre, she gave us some context informing us that they were experiencing a slight issue in the kitchen and that our pizza would be served in a couple of minutes. After further 15 mins as the table behind us (that got the table around 20 mins after us) was getting their pizza served, I thought it was joke and I asked that waiter about it. He answered that he is not the chef so it was pointless to "complain" with him about the disservice, to which I pointed out that I was not blaming him for it and he was in that moment the only person representing the restaurant I could ask to have some explanations. He shrugged and answered our pizza would be probably on the way. We had more than enough at that point and informed him we were leaving, to which he shrugged again and answered "ok, bye, ciao".

Overall, the vibe that I got from the place is "we already make enough money, so we don't really care about our customers experience 'cause the customers' turnover is solid enough". As a matter of fact there were other people already waiting for the table.

The maitre never offered us some bread (I would have been the only one who couldn't eat it, but my other two friends would have enjoyed some solid food during the endless wait) and never informed us about the issue but most importantly: no one, from the staff, even tried to at least apologize for what it matters.

This is not the experience I was hoping for on my last night in Nice 😅 but one thing I know is that it was my first time actually leaving a restaurant after having been kept waiting for over 1 hour and half. There's always...