Amici Bali — Restaurant in Pulau Bali

My wife and I visited while celebrating our wedding anniversary. It was a nice venue but that is where the compliments end.

We ordered the oxtail ravioli, it arrived cold but the worst was that we found large bits of bones in this dish. Unfortunately, my wife had bitten into at least 3 pieces of bone and hurt her teeth. We acknowedge that some little bones can can end up on plate unintentionally due to various shortcomings or carelessness in the supply of the meat or when preparing the mince, but once we expressed this to the restaurant, the response we got nothing short of abhorrent.

When showing the scattered bones found in the dish to a local waitress, she and the team then brought the matter to the general manager Simone Gastaldi. The local staff appeared to show concern and wanted to help rectify the matter, however it was clear to us that Simone not taking it seriously and tried to brush it off by only apologizing, trying to surmise how the bones got into the dish, offering advice to have her teeth checked and finally giving out his business card in case we needed to reach out further.

In our experiences with mishaps at other similar high-end restaurants throughtout our travels, they would show more concern, not least for an incident that physically hurt the customer, by at least replacing the dish, offering a dessert or waiving any service charge. It just leaves a bad taste reflecting on how this situation was handled at Amici and it felt like our custom was not valued. The restaurant should re-evaluate clearly how vital customer service is towards representing their image of a fine dining establishment.

As an aside, we learnt before leaving from the restaurant manager Janu Setiawan that he would have tried to do something more instead of only apologizing, but Simone had insisted that he would handle our table.

At the end of the day, this was simply too little too late and any proposed compensation was inconsequential to us as the lack of empathy and sincerely from the restaurant and Simone in particular had already left us with a conclusion that they did not genuinely care or took any ownership of issues with their product. We feel we need to share through this review how this has ruined our wedding anniversary experience and how this restaurant falls short of the standard required for both the food and the level of respect, service, sincerity and care that should be shown towards their customer.

Our response to Simone (from 30 April 2025): No server offered up any dessert and was merely asking if we would to like to ORDER some after the complaint and showing the bones. If that was the case, we would have felt better and be satisfied with the service outcome, but let's be clear no one offered anything. You're not speaking the truth.

When we say it was too little too late, whatever level of compensation was only offered by Jamu after we had expressed our disappointment to him about your handling of the situation Simone. This was all AFTER WE HAD PAID THE BILL AND WERE LEAVING THE RESTAURANT. We are not sure how the internal conversations went between you and the team to reach this level of confusion.

@Simone, you did not offer to cover a medical checkup, but suggested we do it and provided your business card to to reach out just in case. It us merely a hollow gesture.

@Simone, we do not feel you or the chef are in a position to judge whether the bones can cause harm or not without experiencing it first hand. This again only emphasizes how little you understand the customer distress, and your attitude in playing things down and belittling the customer.

To be clear, we are not accusing the chef or kitchen staff of trying to do harm. We understand that this can occur, but need to share our experience on how a top end restaurant like yours handled the situation so awfully compared to similar establishments around the globe.

Having looked at other customer reviews with 1 stars, we shouldn't be so surprised at your level of ownership and lack of sincere...

After hearing rave reviews from Bali natives and online, i booked Amici for my wife’s 50th birthday dinner over a month ago.

We were so excited to dine there but were unfortunately surprised by the end result.

It started well with an enthusiastic greeting and being sat comfortably indoors.

We were constantly asked if all was ok by multiple waiters and even an impeccably dressed gentleman in a cream suit, whom i assumed was the owner.

Our food orders were taken and i was surprised that the drinks order was taken at the same time. I assumed aperitifs would be served while we perused the menu. In fact, the starters came before our cocktails.

Foodwise, the burratta was delicious as was the octopus but the fried zucchini flowers a let down. Thick stodgy batter and over salted. Also came too quickly after ordering and i was wondering if it had been precooked and left on the pass.

The mains were where the disappointment came. My son had ordered a pizza and it arrived but then there was no sign of any of the other three main courses. We could see the open plan finishing station that nothing was going on with the three chefs, one of whom was busy checking his phone. We had to ask twice when our dinners would arrive as this being a family celebration dinner we wanted to eat together. We kept getting apologies and told it would be five - ten minutes, which is an age in food service.

When our three ravioli main courses finally did arrive it did so with one of the chefs apologising that it was due to poor communication. Not a great look.

The raviolis themselves were good, as was the pizza but by now the mood had been deflated. Incidentally, the broccoli side dish i ordered did not turn up - but i wasn’t charged for it.

We appreciated the glass of champagne as way of apology but it did not make up for the poor service.

We were served a complimentary desert this being my wife’s birthday dinner which was accompanied by a half hearted rendition of Happy Birthday by two embarrassed looking waiters. There was also no sign of the impeccably dressed man after our initial conversation with him at the start of the evening. We don’t know if the service issues we had had been escalated to him or if he knew but wasn’t concerned.

We left dinner on a lower note than when we arrived - surprised as this was to be a special night.

All in all, the food was reasonable but perhaps a little inconsistent.

What was surprising was the service. We were constantly asked of everything was ok, up until the main course issue and then after that nothing.

This review isn’t to bemoan our wait staff as communication issues occur. Its to let the management know that perhaps some upping of their game is called for in trying to ensure the customer has a good experience and leaves their restaurant in a good mood. Watching all the chefs talking with each other and looking at their phones while we sat there waiting for our late main courses was not a...

Rare is it that a visit to a restaurant changes one's appreciation of a national cuisine, but such as it was over 2 visits to Bali in August and October 2023, I had the fortune of staying along Jln Petitenget in Seminyak and chanced across Amici Bali. Drawn by it's understated and classy exterior dining area I resolved to try it for research as a wandering gourmand is wont to do. My first impression was that of attention to detail, as even the cutlery was from Italy. My next impression was surprise as the house Prosecco by Leonardo reversed my up to then less than salubrious view of Italian Proseccos in general. And so it was with this journey of discovery to other wines on the list. All eye-opening, genre confounding and selected with great care to highlight the food that was to come. And for the food that was to come, after tasting the entrees, my dining partner and I did not even make it past the entrees. As with the wines, one entree led to another, then another. I think we completed the entrees on that occasion. The stand out was the Eggplant Parmigiana. One bite of it and there ensued the reverent silence that is reserved for divine taste of the highest order. The expressions on my partner's face expressed the inexpressible. We resolved to return to Amici. And so we did in the following month. This time we moved onto the other dishes. The one that moved us the most was simply the Pizza Margherita. The perfection of the puffy edge, the melding of the tomato, cheese and basil brought on once again the silence of pure sensorial delight. Finally, the icing so to speak was their house made Gelato. Pure opulent creamy chocolate unlike the chain store gelatos. Over 2 visits to Bali, we attended Amici 4 times, with an especial highlight their first wine pairing dinner which we were fortunate in terms of timing to be there for. This featured special dishes created by chef magnifico Sandro and paired with wines from Masi Agricola and introduced by the wine maker who had flowin in from Veneto. A treat for the senses truly. Having lived in Australia for 38 years, and Singapore for 13 years, I have had my fair share of Italian fare. But nothing like this. A lot of Italian restaurant food in these spheres is homely, dressed well. This is elevated Italian, but respectful of the foundational tastes that make Italian food the force it is. This awakened my appreciation for Italian cuisine. And for that Grazie Amico. Kudos to Simone general manager extraordinaire, Sandro, Paco, Benny and Rihal for making my partner and I feel at home and in fact for letting me feel that Bali has truly world class food to offer that is not...