Ambelonas Corfu/Vineyard & restaurant — Restaurant in Municipality of Central Corfu and Diapontia Islands

I don't understand these reviews, either we were extremely unlucky or people have really bad taste in food because this was BAD. Beautiful place but everything from the food to the service was awful. CANNOT recommend.

We were a group of 6 who went for dinner, and when we got there they took us to a table and left us there. After 30+ minutes of waiting to order with no drinks or water or anything, one of us got a hold of some staff and they finally came to take our order. Two of us each had an appetizer, which was good until I found a hair in my food and I stopped eating. I told the waiters about it (two came and cleared the table) and one of them just said that it had NEVER happened before, are you sure? The other one asked if it was from our table, and NO, it was under the fish I'd ordered so the hair came from the kitchen. The other waiter said that they would tell the kitchen but that was it. After this, we waited over 45+ minutes and AGAIN, had to go search for some waiters and ask them when our main courses would come, and given their response it sounded like they hadn't even started cooking our main courses.

And here is why I question if other people who have reviewed this place have really bad taste or if this restaurant hated us because the main course was one of the worse main courses I've ever had. None of us were satisfied with our food since it was not seasoned or salted enough and most of it acutally looked like some gym bros mealprep/leftovers, aka NOT restaurant quality in our opinion. Since I have some allergies I asked if they could remove one ingredient from the fish I ordered, which wasn't a problem, but the dish I got was one of the most dissapointing meals I've ever had. It was white fish which hadn't been salted (enough) with soggy potatoe wedges which was COVERED in olive oil and that was it. The fish was perfectly cooked, I'll give them that, but the components were just awful. No veggies either, just soggy potatoes and tasteless fish with oil as "sauce". It was like they removed all the seasoning since I couldn't eat one of them. And again, they didn't come to clear our table until someone got up to grab one. of the waiters to come and clear it, and when they did, they left half of the plates so we had to grab them once again several minutes later since no one came to finish clearing the table.

When they finally cleared (the first part) the table we told the waiters about how dissapointed we were, the answer we got was "Oh no one has EVER been dissatisfied with our food before, we have NEVER heard this before" etcetc, which made us extremely dissapointed. If one says that they are dissapointed with the food the waiter should atleast try to find out WHY and what went wrong but nope. It felt like the waiter did not want to listen and only defend themselves, which I think is quite a bad character feature for a restaurant.

During our whole time at this restaurant NO ONE came to check how the food was, if we wanted more wine or dessert or anything, NOT ONCE. They seemed to ignore our table completely as we repeatedly had to go up to a staff member to get service. We were so fed up at the end and had to, once again, search for waiters to be able to oay to get the hell out of there, and the waiter that we first found were really unhelpful and just said that we have to look for a specific waiter since it's not their task to do. To get the right person to manage the payment sure is a task for the STAFF not the customers. When we paid, there was no excuses told or deduction for anything, not for the hair or the bad food, the service or anything. They didn't say anything about it and charged us full price.

I have never felt so disappointed in a restaurant until this one. The service is the worst I've ever got and I do regret ever coming to this restaurant. Maybe the wine tastings are better because the wine was good, but DON'T come here for dinner if you actually like food and are a foodie like me, because you will be dissapointed. The surroundings were nice and the wine was good but...

I never want to write a bad review unless I find it important to warn people of what to expect.

Firstly, I’d like to mention the restaurant itself and the grounds are beautiful, however, the various issues we had with our experience completely ruined our time there and left us severely let down afterwards.

Our first issue was that when I initially booked we did not get a confirmation email, so we contacted the establishment directly by phone for clarity so there was no confusion on our arrival. The woman who answered said that she was driving so she could not take any notes so I should text her the details, which was perfectly fine, although after I texted the details, I did not receive a reply until past 9pm the next day, which is also fine. That reply said that they do not understand the request, so I clarified in detail how we did not receive a confirmation email and sent a screenshot of the reservation confirmation from the website itself, we did not get a reply from that message at all, a couple days passed and I decided a few hours before our reserved time to cancel our reservation because we didn’t want to make the drive there and create an awkward situation for the staff and ourselves. After sending the message to cancel, we got an instant reply that read ‘Thank you for letting us know.’

My partner was really keen to go, so we decided to book it again from a different email, the email confirmation did come through this time.

On arrival seating was limited as it was raining (which is completely fine and obviously not their fault), however we were seated by the edge of the outdoor seating area where the rain would splash onto us, and customers would enter and brush against us coming in, as there was lots of free seating we asked if we could move slightly more inwards or to another table, the waitress rolled her eyes and went to speak to who I presume is the owner or manager, who was sat directly behind us, the owner/manager also rolled her eyes before them talking for roughly 5 minutes before allowing us to move to another seat, to which we thanked them very much and explained that we didn’t want to be difficult and apologised.

We were asked about drinks and food after waiting around 20 minutes, and received our starters after another 30 minutes, we then received our main courses an hour and a half from when we arrived. It was extremely slow service despite the restaurant not being very busy.

My partner and I are not fussy about food at all, and were extremely excited to try local corfiot cuisine, however, the starters were pleasant but the main courses were unfortunately quite basic, my partners risotto was okay but a bit watery, not particularly special considering the price. My lamb with bulgar wheat was also disappointing, as it tasted once again not particularly special and the lamb was majority fat.

Overall we would not recommend Ambelonas, the experience was extremely awkward and the food was definitely overpriced. We have had far, far nicer dinners and service in Corfu for half the price, there are plenty better places to visit...

If you found this restaurant on TikTok like I did, I’d advise you to consider the following before making a reservation.

Although fairly difficult to reach unless you’re renting a car, the restaurant is absolutely stunning. We booked an outdoor table and sat amongst fairy lights and blooming jasmine plants as the backdrop to our meal. As far as recommendation goes, that’s the end.

We were served our starter and main fairly promptly. I had the smoked cheese which was acceptable, however the main was SO dry that I seriously struggled to swallow it. I tried to get the attention of a waiter to enquire if they had anything that would help it go down easier, but alas, no. I resorted to chasing each bite down with a sip of water.

In the hopes that dessert would redeem the meal, I set my heart on trying their lemon tart. However, we asked four separate waiters if we could order dessert, but it seemed that no one wanted to take responsibility for taking our order, including management. All in all, a bit of a shame.

If you want a good alternative, we had an absolutely FANTASTIC meal at La Veranda Di Corfu - not only was the food absolutely sensational, but so was the service...