Zizzi - Colchester — Restaurant in Colchester

Last night, three friends & I went for dinner at Zizzi on Valentine’s Day. However, little did we know how shambolic it would be. When we arrived, the four of us settled on the Valentine’s Day set menu, which was 3 courses for £24.95. But as soon as we ordered, it was mishap after mishap – and by the end, we wished we’d stayed at home instead.

Firstly, they’d run out of pink prosecco (which you’d have expected them to have plenty of). But no bother, I thought, so I settled on the blush rosé. They’d also run out of mint for cocktails.

We then placed our food orders on the app, ordering all 3 courses at once. Two of the table ordered the bruschetta, which was essentially barely-toasted bread with a punnet of chopped, sour tomatoes thrown on top. My other friend & I had ordered the garlic bread & the calamari, respectively. The waitress wandered around aimlessly with the garlic bread, and rather than ask if it was for us, instead gave it to another table. This was 35 minutes in. My calamari also made its way around the restaurant, bypassing us before being snuck under the counter & shared among the wait staff as they worked. Once again, they didn’t think to check to see if it was for us. “I swear I just saw one of the waitresses eat your starter over there,” my friend said. I couldn’t believe it, as we were just feet away. So I called the waitress over to let her know two of us hadn’t been served starters, and that we’d ordered them 45 minutes ago. The garlic bread arrived about 5 minutes after, and my calamari followed shortly. No apology from the waitress, either. My friend & I hurriedly ate our starters so the mains could arrive (it was 9pm by this point & we were conscious that the restaurant was due to close in an hour).

The mains arrived about 15 minutes later, but halfway through eating, we decided to take them home in to-go boxes so we could have dessert. While waiting for the boxes, we ordered another round of drinks on the app. We placed our drink orders, and one of the waitresses informed us that they’d run out of dessert except the limoncello tart & ‘lots of ice cream that we could’ve had instead!’ Maybe the staff ate the desserts too?

By this point, I was honestly expecting Gordon Ramsey or John Taffer to walk out. “This sort of service only happens on Kitchen Nightmares or Bar Rescue surely,’ I thought to myself. Three of us passed on dessert, boxed up the one that was ordered, and asked for the bill so we could leave. When the waitress brought over the bill, we were billed for the entire meal – including the 3 desserts we hadn’t eaten along with the 2nd round of drinks we never received.

We had to contest the bill with the surly assistant manager, who argued that she was unable to take anything off the set menu price, but would ‘waive the second round of drinks as a gesture of goodwill’. Oh, the drinks we hadn’t had? How generous.

She brought over a new bill, and we had to explain that we hadn’t had those drinks anyway & we weren’t going to pay for desserts we hadn’t had.That, paired with my starter eaten by the staff, really made for an overall poor experience. When asked why they ate my starter & gave one away to another table, they replied with ‘oh we didn’t realise they were yours’. Eventually, the bill was reduced so we only paid for 3 set courses in total.

Unsurprisingly, we weren’t the only table that night to receive poor service. The table behind us were told they could use a voucher before ordering, only to present it upon paying & be told that it wasn’t valid for that night. And the table next to us were given their mains before their starters.

As someone who reviews restaurants as part of my job, this was hands down one of the weirdest dining experiences ever. The food was mediocre (and certainly not worth the wait), & the attitude from the staff was unbelievable. I fully appreciate restaurants running out of dishes & being busy, but the lack of apologies & insisting we pay the full bill was shocking. In future, make sure to support local family-run Italian...

We came to you as first time customers on Saturday night at 8pm as a meal for my sisters birthday before heading off to the theatre for 9.30. The lady who came to us at the door said we could have a table as we'd not booked, but would be be quick - we said we would definitely be just eating and leaving and explained we had to be at the theatre for 9.30. She sat us at table no. 6 and gave us menus.

We'd only been sat for a couple of minutes when a male waiter appeared at the table - he said in a LOUD voice - YES? - he had no name badge, he was about 6ft tall, dark hair all black clothing, he had an accent but cant place his nationality.

We looked up at him - he then said - I've been told you're in a hurry - i've got a room full of people upstairs - what drinks do you want? We placed our drink order - shocked!!

The drinks arrived to the table by him - he slammed them all down in front of me, loudly, all of them !!! didn't place any drinks in front of the person who'd ordered them.

A few minutes later, he was back - YES !!!

It was at this point that i said to him - Did you mean to ask if we are ready to order?? - He said yes, you're in a hurry !!! i have to say, that AT NO POINT - did we state we were in a hurry!! - we initially told the lady at the door that we would be eating and leaving due to not booking.

Our food arrived - all dishes were delicious We noticed on all the other tables and those people arriving after us that they all had a small bowl of something placed in front of them when they sat down - We did not get this given to us and we asked the lady who had seated us what it was, she brought some to us!!

Once we'd finished our meal we were waiting a while - we asked for the bill

I noticed on the serviette that there was a QR code for the Zizzi app - I downloaded this while we waited.

The same waiter brought the bill over, the same horrid attitude

One of us was paying cash and the other 2 were paying by card He stuffed the card reader under my nose and i paid - I asked him how I get the points for the visit via the app - he told me - ITS TOO LATE NOW - You've paid!!

Why did he not ask if we had the app?? Why did he not encourage us to download and use the app??

Very very disappointed in the service received The food was lovely, the other staff here were lovely - this individual person was awful - he had a bad attitude, gave bad service and was just generally so rude! I didn't see if he was equally rude to others or if it was just aimed at us but we all left very upset by the whole experience.

It was not a good first experience of Zizzi and ruined my sisters...

We visited Zizzis in Colchester with a table of 18 and had an awful experience from start to finish. Our table was nowhere near big enough for the amount of people, with 1.5 chairs per ‘section’ of table, causing a lot of us to be eating on join of tables (which were completely uneven causing plates to wobble constantly), and having barely any personal space. This, however, was only the start of the problems. After ordering, drinks took between 15-30 minutes to come out, some of them arriving after starters and some of them not brought out at all until prompted (including water). Later in the meal a bottle of wine was ordered which had to be chased after waiting 30 mins, only for a glass to be brought out instead. When that was sent back for the bottle we paid for, it took a further 15 minutes. Starters came out mis-matched, 2 people with the same starter sitting next to each other had completely different portion sizes (one double the size of the other, literally). No cutlery was provided at this point and we had to prompt for it once all starters were brought out. Even after this only a few pieces of cutlery were provided, perhaps 4/5 sets. Some people didn’t have starters and others had garlic bread and similar dishes so we we’re going to wait for the cutlery and started eating. After our starter plates were empty for about 15 minutes one waitress came over and said they wont bring out any mains until we ask for the starter plates to be taken away, so then that happened and mains followed about 20-30 minutes later. Unfortunately, almost every meal was burned, wrong or missing items. One particular calzone was missing 2 of the ingredients that made it what it was. Most people were so hungry by this point we didn’t want to wait for replaced meals so most people just left the burnt bits and ate round it, however one was so black it was too much and that one had to be replaced, when it was – it was again a VERY different portion size to the others on the table. The cutlery debacle continued during mains, after asking twice more for cutlery we were told they had run out, we had about 8 sets between 18 of us so we had to resort to sharing and taking turns eating our food, guests with pizzas borrowed one of the pasta dishes knives to cut up, then had to eat with hands instead. During our stay we witnessed the table next to us get up and walk out with almost all their food on the table still, we can only assume they had already sent their food back once before we arrived as they left shortly after ordering our food. All in all it was a very disappointing trip that ruined a celebratory meal...