Doppio Zero Umhlanga — Restaurant in KwaZulu-Natal

I previously ate at this place a few years ago and was blown away by the food and service. Today (10/06/22), our experience here was an exercise in complacency and incompetence. We came in at 19:30 and were promptly seated. We then had to wait 10 minutes for someone to greet us and take orders. When the guy eventually came, he was very confused as to the menu and we had to explain everything we ordered to him. He then ignored us for 20 minutes and attended only to the table in front of us and refused to acknowledge us. After 20 minutes of waiting, I stopped a waiter with a ponytail and explained that we've been ignored for 20 minutes and he bitchily replied that we were not waiting so long and as we can see, they're very busy. The place was half empty and there were more staff faffing around and doing nothing than customers. 10 minutes later ponytail guy comes with our drinks and walks off without taking our food order. Another 10 minutes pass and ponytail returns to take our order. He returns 5 minutes later to say that it's late so everything we ordered is out of stock. We then ordered the cakes of the day,which included a red velvet cake, bar one mousse cake and a coconut custard cake. After the long wait, we were disappointed to find that all 3 cakes were stale, dry and inedible. Ponytail never returned to check on us. No other staff came to us, so we didn't get a chance to speak to a manager. All 3 cakes went to waste as they were disgusting. Eventually after even more waiting, the first guy who took our order came and offered the bill. Absolutely pathetic service from start to finish and staff who don't have the decency to treat customers with respect. Ponytail in particular needs to learn some manners....

Firstly I would like to say the oats is delicious, in fact the best I have ever had. I left the restaurant with a very bitter taste in my mouth though. We arrived just after 11am and I had asked for a lunch menu and was told I am not allowed to order lunch and have to wait for 12. Told them I will but to my surprise the table next to us had their lunch at the same time, then we were given the go ahead to order lunch 🙄 then my steak came very rare after I had said medium. and I had already taken food back after the double portion deboned chicken thighs came in 3 pieces with the size of half my pinky finger. I had informed The manager Mervin that I no longer want the steak as I waited so long (till I finished my rice and mushroom sauce ) to get attended to show them the bloody and rare steak. Even though he offered to take it back to get it fixed, I refused because I was done with my food and lost my appetite after waiting long. I didn’t cause a a scene nor did I shout. I just said it can go back it’s fine. He just kept on talking about me to the other manager and stared at me horribly when we were seated, which made me uncomfortable. He did not even bother to say bye or apologize when we walked out, he actually walked away for a few seconds to avoid me and came back staring at me horribly again once I had exited the restaurant. Well done Mervin, you are the worst...

Doppio is usually that restaurant you know you can't go wrong with; not this one. We arrived, happy and looking forward to some good food, 4 adults, 3 kids.... Two stars because kiddies pizzas were all on point, the young ones were content...

As for our meal. We ordered drinks firs5, naturally, needless to say even the beer took over 25 minutes to arrive, my Dom Pedro, double Jameson came, zero alcohol, I advised the waiter he said they would remake it (Any wise person would have just added the shots and we all move on swiftly) that process took another 30 minutes with my companions getting round two of their dom pedros... When mine finally arrives, essentially I was given a glass of milk with Jameson, on showing the waiter, his position was to argue with me that the whiskey makes the ice-cream liquid. Annoyed I said look man just bring me water because wow.... Insisted that they will make it again... At this point we've been there for nearly 2 hours without food. The meals took so long we even lost our appetite and just wanted to go sleep. Food is on its way, the waiter says to us "my chef is not happy with the meal and wants to know if you would like something else".... Now we're all confused because what chef will say I am not happy with what I made take something else....

Long story short, worst experience ever at a Doppio and secondly worst dining...