Casper & Giumbini's — Restaurant in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown

An otherwise enjoyable lunch marred by the weirdly glib host out front.

Nice to have a bit of banter with a host when you enter a restaurant. But I've never experienced myself and my family just being laughed at without explanation until I entered Casper & Giumbini's.

Did one of us fall over on the way in, do something silly, crack a joke? That would make sense; I'd laugh myself. No, I just walked in there with my multi-ethnic family: my two young kids and my elderly parents. What a sight! Can you imagine? All of us together in one family. In the 21st century? Yes of course you can, big deal, who cares? You’d think nobody cares.

But when the host saw us he started smirking to himself and unable to contain himself quipped “Are you all together?”, and with that burst into laughter at his own joke. As if my family was the funniest sight he’d ever seen!

The waitress standing beside him joined in with him in a false way. I’d be mildly curious to know if she was politely laughing at her boss’s joke or if she found the idea of us all being “together” equally hilarious.

At the time I couldn’t work out what they found so funny. They just continued to laugh at us until my dad responded: “Yes, we are all together.” The host managed to settle himself eventually and said “Oh great you’re altogether”, still chuckling. Even at this point he offered no explanation for the laughter or invitation to join in on the humour. This is what makes the experience so strange. I’ve encountered “witty” hosts before but in every other case the humour has been shared with the customers.

At the time I felt like walking out. But my parents were excited to be taking us all out for dinner and my two young kids were delighted and I didn’t want to cause a scene. But now I regret that we stayed. The waitress who laughed along with the host continued to be curt and borderline-rude for the remainder of her interactions with us.

The food was good and the atmosphere was nice, the rest of the staff we dealt with were both efficient, friendly and professional. It’s a shame their good work was undone by such a bizarre and small...

A very different experience on Monday night to our last visit in January. Couldn’t fault the food other than the tiniest amount of goats cheese in what was offered as a ‘Goat’s cheese salad’, way less than the previous time we ate there. Otherwise food was fresh, well cooked and plentiful. My son had to ask to have his wine glass filled, rather than asking how many for wine. He is 22. We asked for a side portion of onion rings - they didn’t come with our meal - we assumed that the waitress had her hands full and they would come next - we were well into our main course before any waiting staff came near to us so couldn’t ask. When the waitress did come nearby she asked us if we were enjoying our meal and remembered herself that she hadn’t brought the onion rings -we cancelled them at that point as we were nearly done. When clearing the plates she asked if we wanted to see the desert menu, we said yes, it didn’t arrive. Another waitress clearing the table noticed us waiting and brought us the desert menu but neither waitress came back to take our order so when the First Lady did pass by again after some time, we asked for our bill - that didn’t arrive either! My son left at that point now late to meet some friends and we presumed seeing him leave reminded her, however, rather than bringing it, she came over to say ‘you asked for your bill didn’t you’? Another wait and we finally got to pay and leave. It was a fairly flat experience overall, not due to the food or restaurant itself but because of all the gaps while we waited. It was my birthday so I didn’t want to complain and spoil the atmosphere but we left half the tip we normally would and will be slow to go back. It’s a shame but they were not busy, it was a Monday night, so no excuse and she was not inexperienced so it just overall left us feeling we were not...

Steaks were good. Service was less than average during our meal - Until dessert. one waiter tried to give the apple crumble for our table to a table by us that had only sat down, our attempt at catching his eye failed so he returned to the kitchen and due to the hot cold construction of the crumble once it was at our table the ice cream was mostly melted and the crumble no longer hot.

The main issue was the crumble. It was bad, sadly I would argue the worst dessert I’ve been served. Not only was it a far cry from the advertised apple crumble but the apples were improperly cooked and the crumble was basically non existent and closer to a powder of digestive biscuits than crumble. The ice cream was fine and the crème anlagise was closer to cream than the French classic.

I normally never write reviews or mention it to wait staff if the food is poorly prepared. Furthermore the only reason for this review was the waitresses reaction to our mention of poor quality. She told us that “everyone likes it” and there are “two pastry chefs” as well admitting she had never tried the crumble. We were not asking for it taken off the bill or anything other than honest feedback for improvement.

The reaction was incredibly standoffish and not understanding at all. Both the dessert and the reaction to feedback left a very bad taste in our mouths after a nice main course.

After working over 10 years in the industry I know how important quality, feedback and staffs ability to handle situations is. This review does not come from a place of malice and would not be posted if more hospitable hospitality was employed after being served something of such poor quality. I will give this place another shot and hope the feedback is undertaken and it was just a bad night for the pastry chef and the...