Zizzi - Cardiff Mermaid Quay — Restaurant in Butetown

Food was nice, but service slow and no attention to detail, no cutlery on table ..napkins..too a long time to get drinks ..order ..waited a while for water asked twice. Lacked atmosphere ..Dec was great ..but it's missing something ... The above was 6 years ago !

My 10 yr old wanted to eat here for her birthday ... Service was awful -on arrival no one to greet us when they did took a while to get us to our table no greeting or happy birthday to my daughter ( was obvious with badge )

Menus were dirty with food on & had to ask for a kids menu.

When drinks came - after a drink was finished we noticed the glass was broken at the bottom.. no apology or another drink offered.

We had to ask for ketchup , salt vinegar ( they brought balsamic) & parmesan cheese they didn't offer to do it just put it on the table.

My partner has an egg & nut allergy they showed him a different menu - he ordered off it .when it arrived it wasn't the right pizza & when we asked and checked if it was OK to eat .. the guy shouted across the restaurant it's all the same dough just stretched differently.bit concerning with allergies!

My mum had chicken & tuscan potatoes- they had no flavouring on as described.

We went to pay the bill asked to split it between each family group ( there was 8 of us ) and we were able to split the bill but the family with a discount card wasn't allowed to use it as it not for more than 6 people - we were trying to have it from a family of 5 ? But we werent able to as we booked as a group !

We then tried to pay cash - we couldn't- they cashless.. On no time of booking - email confirmation & additional call regarding allergies & then another to add some one else to the table. The guy said there's a sign on the way in... There was a sign saying wait to be seated & in tiny writing. It said cashless......

If they told us on arrival we would have gone elsewhere.. even in our email & phone fall correspondence we wouldn't have booked.

Thankfully a family member oaid by card & we gave h the cash.

No good bye no apology..

Other than the view go elsewhere plenty of other nicer places in the bay. My Daughter was...

Embarrassing service from staff

I booked a table for 26 people at 8:30pm, having pre-ordered food the day before. We arrived on time but had to wait another 10 minutes to be seated, despite being reassured the day before on the phone that they already told the table before us that they needed to be out at 8pm. Once seated, there was no warm welcome, and it took ages to get drinks. Despite pre-ordering, food didn’t arrive until after 9pm, and service throughout was slow and the staff clearly didn't want to be there and didn't make any conversation.

When I asked about closing time at 9:50pm, a manager bluntly told me they closed at 10pm and mentioned she had a date after she finished work (wanting to get away soon) – unprofessional and unnecessary. Staff showed no initiative; I even had to take my group’s dessert orders myself and then get up and tell the server. We were rushed through dessert and were told we needed to be out by 10.15-10.20 despite my online booking that was offered to me by ZiZi stating 8.30 -10.30pm. Because we felt that we were being rushed, my group felt they had to ask for the payment QR code to start paying whilst having dessert. One dessert order that came to the table was incorrect, and instead of apologising, the waitress claimed she was told the wrong information by me, doing so in front of our whole group.

In addition to this, the server was clearly getting ready for her date - putting her hair down etc rather than serving her customers.

To top it off, there was confusion over payment. An extra dessert was added to the order by mistake and when we noticed, the manager told everyone it was the other managers fault. I was charged for an extra dessert plus service charge in the end, which I have sent an email to dispute. While the food was great, the service was appalling—disorganised, unwelcoming, and unprofessional. If they can’t handle late bookings properly, they shouldn’t...

Access to the restaurant was not clear, with the flooring outside being worked on. Some signs would have helped. We had to ask directions from a competitor business to find our way up. These are all items that a minimum effort to see things from the customer's view, and some attention to detail could cover.

I felt the Maitre d' did not care about us, and that we were an inconvenience to her. She took ten minutes to even acknowledge our presence in the restaurant, and even then, said hello only to tell us to wait. Odd to try to cram us in a corner with the other two or three full tables when the rest of the restaurant was empty. God knows how she copes when it's busy. And then to be resistant when I asked for a more private table. That was unsatisfactory service.

The waiter, on the other hand, he was very good, exceptional in fact.

The food was good, up to a point. I felt the pizza was too big, and the same amount of toppings could have graced a standard base better. Neither of us could eat the whole thing, because it was cold by the time we got to the end. Standard size would be better. I also cannot understand how an Italian pizza restaurant cannot have a fiorentina on the menu. I had some weird recipe instead, a pizza with an identity crisis.

I also do not like eating off a piece of wood. How do you clean wood for the next person? It is a bad idea. Get some plates.

The base was traditional, quite good, and the ingredients were a mixture of fresh and bought in. In particular the rocket was not fresh. The mozzarella was not the best I've had. A salad leaf should be the freshest thing on my plate. I would normally expect fresh ingredients for the entire meal at this price, so overall it was quite disappointing.

The waffle was good. The coffee was good. The wine was very good. The price was on...