Giovanni's Italian Restaurant & Pizzeria — Restaurant in North Island

Oh Giovanni's..it would have been 4 star easily if not for the letdowns in the booking system. Let's start with the good stuff: food was lovely. We started with a scrumptious garlic bread/pizza, then Caesar salad which was huge and delicious, pork belly, and creamy pastas which were rich but tasty. But...a year ago we had booked a table here and were told on arrival that we could only have the table for one hour. So we left. This time we came from Hamilton and had booked a table via email, receiving a confirmation so we thought, all sorted. We wanted to come back purely because we do love the food. I then phoned the restaurant 15 minutes before our booked time to let them know we were running about 10 minutes late. They told me: no problem. Unfortunately there was no sign of our booking anywhere! And this after just having phoned the restaurant, so I am not sure why they didn't check there and then what time our booking was for. The saving grace was the lovely staff who took my number and rang us when a table became available. In the end we only waited about 30 minutes. My problem is with the way bookings are handled, in our case, a little poorly. The food makes up for it, but it would be so nice to make a booking and then feel confident that it will be in the system and we don't get the table for a limited time only! All in all it has left us a little weary trying this place again. Although we did really appreciate the staff going out of their way to try and rectify the situation. Thumbs up...

Terrible experience! We had to wait for an hour and twenty minutes before being told that the steak that we had order 80 mins back was unavailable!!

The entire place is run by one chef and one server+Manager+cashier+cleaner. With such limited staff you would expect that the number of orders and customers are managed such that those who have already ordered are taken care of. Unfortunately not.

We got into the restaurant at 5:40 pm on a Wednesday evening in July (peak of winter) - not exactly rush hour. Having said that, we were told that we would need to wait for 8-10 mins. We got our table in about 15 mins, which is acceptable given we didn’t have reservations.

Thereafter, everything was just incredibly slow and chaotic. We sat there watching more and more guests being welcomed, those who had ordered after us be served and take away orders being served up. finally our appetiser arrived after close to 45 minutes. And then an hour and 20 minutes after we were seated, we get the news that the steak was unavailable. After registering our protest, we asked if the rest of the food was ready - we were told that that would take another 10 minutes!! Absolutely terrible .

So, unless you have several hours to wait and play food roulette not knowing whether or not your food will be served after you wait hours, avoid Giovanni’s like the plague. Even the pizza at Motion Entertainment across the road is much more...

Tried 3 times to contact before posting this review but since noone wanted to call me back, here I am. I ordered 2 gluten free pizzas (at an additonal $4 per pizza) equating to an overall order of just under $80. When I got home (I live 45 mins out of town) and opened the box, I realised we had been, what I can only assume, given childrens pizzas instead of family size. I tried to call and speak to someone, I was told "gluten free is smaller and also doesnt look pretty so thats why". These Pizzas were $30 each and were less than half the size of their regular pizzas. When i tried to explain this to the person on the phone, I was brushed off and told the manager would call me. Noone has since called me. I also emailed twice (with pictures) noone has responded. We have been to Giovanni's a number of times and have never experienced such awful service, we are familiar with the regular size of their pizzas and were shocked that, you pay extra for gluten free bases to receive half a normal order.... A simple courtesy call back would have been sufficient to resolve the matter, but service doesn't seem to be that important to...