Giardino Bar and Grill — Restaurant in East Suffolk

My husband and I visited Giardino's to celebrate our wedding anniversary recently. This was our first time so we did not know what to expect. I had booked a table just in case it was busy, but luckily it wasn't. We were guided through the bar, down a few steps to the restaurant area and shown to our table. They gave us the menus and sufficient time to decide what we wanted. The room was large, square and spacious with plenty of tables, and there were windows and patio doors across one side of the room that opened up onto a patio area with a few picnic tables and a small pergola sheltering a large family-sized picnic table.

I was getting a little uncomfortably warm in the room, so I politely asked if they could open one of the doors. The waiter wasn't sure, but went to ask other staff. Soon enough, two staff members came into the room and started moving the tables about that were set up next to the doors. They opened one of the doors and put a stand outside with a message asking the public not to come in that way, but to enter through the main door. I was very grateful that they were willing to go to all that trouble for me and I thanked them.

We ordered drinks, our starters and our main courses, and it didn't take too long for them to arrive. My husband ordered a low alcohol cider and I had a Pinot Grigio white wine. We both chose the same starter....baked ravioli in breadcrumbs with a garlic dip, which we both thought was delicious! For the main course my husband chose lasagne (one of his favourite meals) and I chose a carbonara. I like to choose things that I don't usually have at home.

When the meals were brought through they looked a good size, with slices of garlic bread on the side, they smelt great and were nice and hot.

The waitress brought some grated parmesan cheese at my request, and we both added a nice amount to our meals.

We tucked in...and wow..I was amazed at how tasty and creamy it was!! I absolutely loved it. My husband enjoyed his too!!

Because we had arrived at 4pm and it was quiet, we were able to chat with no difficulty, which was nice. As we neared the end of our main courses, a few other people started arriving and took their seats but there were still plenty of empty tables and it didn't get very loud at all.

We both ordered sticky toffee pudding with toffee sauce for dessert, and yet again we were pleasantly surprised. Not too much and really tasty!! We had a lovely experience at Giardino's, and the staff who served us were very friendly and obliging.

It would have been nice to see some Italian decor in the restaurant room and to hear some soft Italian music in the background to make our experience feel more authentic. Other than that, our evening was excellent; the food was fantastic, the prices were reasonable, and the environment was relaxing. We will...

Really disappointed.

My boyfriend and I called to reserve a table at this restaurant for 7:30.

We arrived and waited at the bar to be seated. A waitress came along and walked straight past us and started serving drinks at the bar, by this time we'd been standing there got at least 5 minutes without any acknowledgement from any of the staff. Then we were finally told 'We'll be with you in a minute' or 'Won't be a sec'. So by this time it was 10 - 15 minutes before we were asked 'Have you booked?' to which we told them yes, to then be told once again 'Okay, won't be a minute'.

Finally we get asked by another waiter 'Have you guys booked?' - clearly no communication between the two waiters. We said yes no he walked off. The waitress then returned and said 'Just a minute, we're just laying your table'. Surely, if someone had reserved a table, it would be laid already right?

Anyway, finally we got seated and we're then told 'I would give you a menu but we've run out, I'll take someone else's order and then give their menus to you'.

10 minutes later, our menu's arrived.

We ordered a sharing starter, which was nice but very filling and made me not want to eat my main. Our empty starter plates were then then taken away and the waiter noticed my boyfriends glass was empty and offered to get him another drink.

The drink never came.

We finished our mains, which for me were fine but my boyfriend wasn't too keen and decided to leave as quickly as possible. We made our way to the bar because apparently they don't bring the bill to the table and waited again.

When we received the bill, the waiter then remembered that my boyfriend wanted another drink and laughed it off. They didn't charge us for it but when we looked at the receipt we'd been charged for a desert which we didn't have. Unfortunately we didn't realise this until we'd left.

So all in all, extremely disappointing experience at what seems to be the most talked about restaurant in Lowestoft.

The best part was the complimentary mints given to us...

Not impressed. Looks beautiful on the outside but not worth going in at the moment. I gather that it used to be great due to the other google reviews.

We were not greeted as we walked in and had to wait enough time to be noticed to find ourselves a seat at the bar.

Once noticed, we were told that they ‘would be with us in a minute’, four times. We very much did not feel welcomed. We were then asked if we booked (we had) and they took our name. We were then told they were just laying our table. No drinks offered while we wait.

A second waiter then told us our table was ready and asked us if we had booked establishing no communication between the two waiters on the floor.

We were then told (in a half empty, Thursday evening restaurant) they had run out of menus because it had been ‘hectic of recent’ so we had to wait for another customer to order. Their menus were crumpled up when handed over.

We then had a noticeable time to wait before being served. Enough to notice the cobwebs in the corners and mouldy ceiling tiles.

The menu was very odd with fish and chips, burgers and steaks headlining the menu.

We ordered the ‘Piatto di Pesce’ for our starter. The batter was very heavy on the prawns, more like Chinese fried pork balls which went very well with the oddly placed Asian sweet chilli dipping sauce. It Wasn’t really the ‘real taste of Italy’ ‘yummy Lowestoft’ advertised. We asked for some garlic mayonnaise but had to wait ages for that of course.

My main course was really bland. I ordered the ‘gamberi e linguini’ and it felt like it had been sitting in the pomodora for a week since everything tasted of tomato. Even the chilli peppers had lost their spice.

We finished up and got the bill. The waiter chuckled apologetically as he forgot to pour my second drink to go with my main meal. So they took both my drinks off the bill. This would have been nice of them if they hadn’t accidentally added a dessert we hadn’t ordered to our bill. We noticed this on the way home, damnit!

Ah well,...