Settimo Cielo - Rustic Refined Italian — Restaurant in Bali

There are plenty of reviews of this restaurant, and this review is not meant to influence anyone from eating/avoiding this place. I only speak about my personal experience.

My wife and I attended at the restaurant on a Friday evening, at 6pm+. Upon arrival, we were however surprised to find that the entire restaurant was completely empty. In the duration we were there (which was until about 8pm), only one other table dined in.

The dinner started off well enough. We had ordered some wine, and were welcomed with an amuse bouche, which were decent.

In total, we ordered: minestrone soup kingfish artichoke - there were no issues with this dish 2 pastas - the Cacio e Pepe and Frutti Di Mare Tagliata Di Manzo - the beef striploin.

Do note that the minestrone soup contains pork. This was my oversight as I assumed minestrone to generally refer to a vegetable soup, while it did state in the menu that the soup contains pancetta.

However, the soup was exceedingly salty, possibly due to the same pancetta. Though it was just one bowl, my wife and I could not collectively finish it due to its saltiness.

Likewise, the Frutti Di Mare was similarly salty, and unbearable.

The Cacio e Pepe, on the otherhand (and rather surprisingly given the heavy-handedness of the aforementioned dishes), was short on pepper, to the point of there being no, or negligible signs of pepper whatsoever.

None of the dishes, we completed.

On to the Striploin. To my recollection, I had ordered my steak to be done 'medium'. However, I was suprised to see that my steak turned out with three different types of doneness, within the same steak! I took one look, one bite, and sent the dish back, cancelling my order. In fairness, I was not charged for the steak.

Aside from the food, I must however commend the service of the staff. Perhaps it was the fact the restaurant was not busy, but we were given top-level service. They were extremely attentive, nearly to a fault, and were also very apologetic to us throughout our experience.

Perhaps it just happened to be a bad day in the kitchen, and I hope that my review provides some feedback for the kitchen to take note...

We were so excited to go back to Settimo Cielo after a 2 ½ year hiatus. 6 of us went there for dinner last night.

Things did not go well. It took 25 minutes to order drinks, all non alcoholic, like a coca cola, 2 lemon squash etc, nothing complicated. 20 minutes later drinks arrived. Then they took our food order. Nobody ordered an appetizer. It took 60 minutes to get our food order

There were 5 tables occupied at the time, 3 inside, 2 outside. I had osso bucco, which clearly had just come out of the refrigerator as parts of it were cold, and it was chewy. It needed another 2 hours in the oven, and the marrow was hard. I ate ½ of it, knowing if I sent it back, I would have another hour wait for another dish.

Then we ordered 3 desserts. 1 lemon tart (made in advance) 1 chocolate mousse, (made in advance), and a tiramisu (made in advance). That took 45 minutes. By that time, we were down to only 2 tables in the restaurant).

I know you have only been open again for a week, I don’t know if the kitchen and wait staff are new or the same employees as 2 years ago, but some serious training is needed. Many times, not a single wait staff was in sight, we had to wave over the bartender for him to find someone.

This used to be a fabulous restaurant pre covid. A special birthday, occasion or get together with close friends. There was not a “person in charge” in sight. Though many apologies from the staff, with "tunggu sebentar" being thrown around every few minutes. We were told there was a minuscule issue in the kitchen. There was nothing minuscule about it.

Come on guys, you can do this, put in the work, train the people, get a good work flow going. You used to work like a well-oiled machine. We are not giving up on you, but will probably take a 6 month break before coming back.

Where was the owner...

Lovely Italian restaurant in a beautiful setting with delicious food. Unfortunately in an almost empty room the lazy inattentive staff spoil what could be wonderful dining experience. At any one time 3 or 4 waitress stood against the back wall staring blankly ahead or chatted amongst themselves while for the whole afternoon the table had to constantly ask for empty plates to be cleared, fresh cutlery etc. It’s a grazing menu but not once were asked would you like to order something else, instead we struggled to gain a waitress attention and felt guilty ordering more dishes (of very delicious food) and asking for empty plates to be removed at each course. Drink service was non existent, empty water bottles staying on the table even after fresh bottles had come out. Empty pre lunch cocktail glasses sat on the table for an hour till asked to be removed even though the table was now on red wine. Empty wine bottles were put back into the wine buckets with no offer of ‘would you like another’ Unfortunately lazy inattentive staff need to be retrained or replaced, and management to address this or they are the...