Zizzi - Belfast Odyssey — Restaurant in Ballymacarret Intake

I feel terrible giving such a bad review, but even 2 stars feels a bit generous. Staff were CLEARLY under pressure, and stayed friendly and pleasant throughout- but it was a very weird restaurant experience.

We were asked if we had a booking, then were told that there were some problems in the kitchen, and that they could only serve pasta today. We were happy with this, and were seated right by the entrance. There were only two other tables seated, but we could see a few empty tables that had not been cleared. The restaurant is beautifully decorated. A friendly member of staff brought menus and also mentioned that they were very short staffed, which was apparent. We asked about allergies and were given a huge black folder, then directed to a qr code. A little while later, friendly staff came back to take our order. My daughter ordered from the children's menu, and we informed them that she has a milk allergy, though it should not have any impact on her order. The staff member encouraged to choose the veggie sticks for starter, then she chose her pasta shape. I ordered a gluten free pasta dish, as I have celiac disease.

This is where it started to get weird 😂 While we were waiting, we saw some people get seated, some people were told that there would be a long wait, and some were told that they couldn't have a table. This seemed to be completely at random. A group who arrived just after us were told that they could only order pasta or salad. We thought maybe they'd just forgotten to tell us that we could order salad. Then another table were given fries and dishes that were not pasta. Then a couple who sat beside us was told that they could order appetizers. One of the parties who arrived after us were told that payment was by card only- we hadn't been told this and there was no sign up to say this- nobody else who arrived while we were there was told this. As we continued to wait for our food, one of the two members of staff on the floor came out with a pizza and fries, then sat beside the door to eat their food. As this staff member was literally eating pizza and fries beside the door, customers were still being told that there was a problem with the kitchen equipment and they could not order pizza 😂 he left half of his pizza, then left the restaurant for the rest of his break. So there was half a pizza and an empty fries bucket at the table by the door while people were being told that they could not order pizza. This remained on the table throughout the rest of our time in the restaurant. There was no consistency nor pattern to what people were being told that they could order. We were completely bemused by the whole thing. This continued in the background during the whole time we were there.

Our food arrived, and my daughter and I had been given the same vegan, gluten free dish- though cheese was a part of my order, and my daughter had not ordered gluten free pasta. I was brought some mozzarella on a side dish, but my daughter was left with gluten free pasta rather than the shapes she had chosen. I called the waitress and asked about the veggie sticks starter that my daughter had been encouraged to order as part of her kid's meal. We were told that there were no veggie sticks. Neither of us could recommend the gluten free pasta- it was overcooked- but the third member of our group had Carbonara and enjoyed it.

If they were able to get staffing and kitchen issues sorted, this could be a lovely Zizzis. When I looked at other reviews, this seems to be a frequent problem. Hopefully it's addressed soon, because these conditions aren't fair on...

Only awarded 1 star as it isn't possible to give none. What a disaster from the beginning. On entering the restaurant (Odyssey Place) I waited at least 10 mintues before being acknowledged by a member of staff. This wasn't from a lack of being noticed nor from the staff being run off their feet, I know they saw me. It took a young girl coming in to start her shift to actually come and give me the time of day. We were a party of 13, made up of 4 families. When we eventually got to our tables we ordered some water and juice for the kids, 20 minutes later this still hadn't arrived. We had to ask for colouring pencils for the kids to colour their menus, we received one small pot between 7 children. The girl taking our order was lovely and very obliging. We asked could we order the different tables separately as some of us had Blue Light cards and wanted to avail of the 30% discount. She said this wasn't a problem and took four separate orders. A short time later a woman arrived at our table to inform us we couldn't use our discount as we were one order. We told her we had put four separate orders in as we knew the discount couldn't be used for large parties. We each had our own table numbers and the waitress taking the order had noted this. The woman, who I can only assume was the manager, ill-trained and severely lacking in interpersonal skills, insisted this couldn't be done and that we had to pay the service fees. We told her to separate our tables if this was to be an issue, she refused. She then started threatening 'terms and conditions' at us, which we had pre-read and were fully aware of. At this point we stated our previous concerns, the long wait to be seated, the fact our drinks still hadn't arrived...etc.) The manager was extremely unprofessional and rude. We were left with no option but to leave the restaurant. I should add, we were already apprehensive about dining here as we had heard nothing but negative reviews, but wanted to give it a chance anyways. We will never be back. How in 2025 are basic customer service skills so lacking??

The only two members of staff who showed any hospitality awareness were the young girl who set up our tables and the girl who happily took our separate orders, both of whom were so confused as to why we were leaving as they were happy to accommodate us. Seems the manager is most definitely the...

Lovely staff but very very disappointing service.

My mum came up to visit from cork last weekend, I thought Zizzi would be a nice place before the cinema as I had been to Victoria square location and it was lovely. Unfortunately we had a very different experience in this location. When we ordered our food I requested two of the items be removed from my calzone as I’m pregnant and can’t eat certain foods. My mum asked for an extra two ingredients on her pizza. When our food arrived my calzone had both items on it that I had asked to be taken off and my mums pizza was stone cold. We asked for these things to be rectified and only one of the items were removed from my calzone and my mums pizza came out overdone and without the requested extras. We let that go as we don’t like complaining anyways so didn’t want to do it again. It took over 40 minutes to get drinks everytime. When we asked for the bill we waited 25 minutes then asked someone else. After 20 more minutes my mum tried to go up to pay but was told it had to be done at the table. About 10 minutes later someone came down with a card machine but no bill. He showed me the bill on the card machine with the added charges for the extras my mum never received. I requested these to be removed and in fairness to the man he took off the charge for the entire pizza. There was also a very very large group of teenage sports team and their coaches who took up the entire are left no space for people to pass to get to the toilet and were chanting loudly. I understand this isn’t the staffs fault but it made the atmosphere very uncomfortable and the staff completely forgot about the rest of the customers. In fairness to the staff there was only two waiters, two hosts I think and at one point one of the hosts was behind making pizzas they very clearly don’t have enough staff and it made for a very stressful and disappointing experience will definitely not be returning to...