Gemelli — Restaurant in Gauteng

The ambience is so refreshing and of course even the set up is aesthetically pleasing. Although the hostess is not the friendliest and for someone receiving guests it's a turn off, even on the phone she was the same. Her customer service needs a bit of tuning. Thankfully her attitude did not affect my overall impression of the establishment. The food did not take long as long as I had anticipated especially because we were hungry, one would be anxious however, we were pleasantly surprised with the swift service. Rating the food a 4 out of 5 only because the risotto Ala paella was a let down due to the overpowering tomato flavor and cheese, you can barely taste anything else except the tomato and cheese. Not a fan of pork but it'd be remiss of me not to give the chef his/her flowers on that scrumptious glazed pork belly, the mash was so fluffy and creamy but not too rich. The veges were just cooked to perfection, still crunchy and not overcooked where you can't see the original color of the veges anymore. And that mushroom risotto with the lamb rump my goodness I'm salivating as I type this. Absolutely mouthwatering, so juicy. And lastly if you're going to the bar(Phirinyane bar, which is outside) instead of the restaurant itself, just be warned it can get a tad bit rowdy. It seems to be more popular than the restaurant over the weekend as lot of people prefer going there instead of inside the restaurant. Overall experience I'd recommend it because I'm definitely going to keep going there. Chef Alessandro has...

So... I think I this restaurant on some TV show a few months back and put it on my 'places to go' list until bout 2 weeks ago. And in that time frame it's just been abuzz... Everywhere I turn, it's Gemelli this, Gemelli that, Gemelli trendy, Gemelli food of the gods. If you asked a few people they'd probably say Jesus had his last supper here. I'm not lying nor exaggerating but the PR this place gets through word of mouth is mind boggling- amazing really.

Food I ordered the basil pesto from their Classic Menu and asked them to add extra chicken just to zhoosh it up. This is honestly the simplest dish in all of Italian cooking. But I REALLY appreciated how well it was done. The pesto was beautiful and the chicken pieces just the right kind of tender and juicy. It could have done with just a little more seasoning but nothing a pinch of salt didn't solve.

Vibe Ambience is great, well lit, the waiting staff absolutely awesome and attentive. I never had to 'look' for them, they were always just available. Not irritating but always around to fillip a glass of wine or ask at just the right moment if we needed more water etc... You catch my drift.

Value for money I've toiled for almost a week now on whether this place is expensive or if I'm just a cheapskate. And I'll say that maybe I'm just not the target market; maybe I need to work harder in life... I don't know... I personally think it's mucho expensive.

Overall... worth going, even if it's just to see what everyone else is always...

My experience at Gemelli was average. As most Joburg restaurants service needs to be improved. Firstly my booking was incorrect, I had originally booked for 10 people but we increase to 15. I did call and let them know about the extra people, but obviously we get there and they've only set up for 10. Now as our other guests arrive we must now shuffle and move around. I don't understand why they didn't follow my booking changes as they agreed to follow up on the changes.

As for the drinks. We pay so much for the drinks but there was hardly any alcohol in the drinks, we had let our waiter know and he didn't even try to make a plan for us. He just told us that we had to order another drink, but how does that even help. We ordered the ginger beer drink it was tasty but hardly any alcohol.

The food. We were a big table so we ordered plates to share, which worked out better because we had a bigger variety of foods and the price overall was not too bad for a big table. We ordered starters and mains. With the mains, the portions of the pasta were nice and big. We also ordered a chicken and fillet dish, the portions of those were small, I was disappointed because the dish was expensive for a small portion compared to the big portions of pasta.

Overall the food was good, lovely flavours and exciting plating. Need to work on their service, booking system and assess the menu for...