Gino D'Acampo 360 Sky Bar — Restaurant in Liverpool

Just want to start by saying I have never ever left a review on any place before now. But this simply cannot go without being addressed.

Extremely disappointing experience on New Year’s Eve. We had a table booked for 21:30. We arrived half an hour early, so we approached the host stand to let them know we had arrived early, to which the host asked us to take a seat at the bar as our table was not yet ready.

We purchased a cocktail each and took a seat at the bar but a few moments later we were asked to come back to the host stand as our table was now ready. This is when things went sour. We were met by an extremely rude host who put it across as a pay up front for the nye special (£105 per person). We stated that we weren’t sure that we had booked the New Year's special but as one of our party was gluten-free, we were hoping to order off the gluten free menu like we have on visits prior to this one. Now we had paid a £40 deposit but our email never stated anything about a set menu or anything it included so we began to ask questions on what it would include ( especially for someone who is gluten free ). The host instantly became defensive and aggressive, stating that we should have told them beforehand that my girlfriend was gluten free and explained that we had to have the food from the set menu whether it was gluten free or not. My girlfriend explained that she can’t just have anything because she has coeliac disease and would have let them know previous if she had known about the set menu. The host then said “ well you can have salmon” in a condescending tone. We asked to be changed to the normal menu; the host informed us this is not possible so we must pay the £200+ bill upfront.

Note* the hostess was being very aggressive at this point.

So, I reluctantly paid as we did not want to spoil the evening, and my girlfriend was becoming increasingly uncomfortable because of how the host was treating us. The host then told us to sit on the couches and wait. A little while later she came back over and asked if our booking was “Megan Williams” ? We said no. (She also asked this earlier to which we also said no!)

Turns out she charged us for someone else's meal!! She believed we had already had our meal? Which makes no sense considering we was asking about switching to different menus!

She continued to be extremely rude and aggressive, to try shift the blame to us? When it was clearly her fault. She said “ I'm sorry this happened but you did say you were Megan Williams” to which we both said “no we did not”. why would we say we were someone else?

She then refunded the money (takes 2/5 days for it to return. Keep in mind I still had to pay for our meal on top of this) and then was told we could switch to the gluten free menu as an apology and a treat! I am still failing to understand how she got this so wrong. I am also failing to understand how being given the opportunity to eat gluten free food as someone who cannot eat anything else without becoming extremely ill is a treat!

The only saving grace from this experience was our waiter. We never got his name but he was very helpful and went the extra mile to make us finally feel welcome.

The food took well over an hour to arrive, (which made us late for our sky bar booking). But when it did arrive it was very good.

Still the whole experience was tainted by one very rude hostess. We understand that mistakes can happen, especially on a night as busy as New Year’s Eve. But to only receive an apology from her where she still accused us of making a mistake was simply not...

CHAOTIC NIGHTMARE.

We booked to go to the sky bar and then to dinner in the restaurant and I can safely say it’s one of the worse experiences I’ve had.

To start - when we got up to the sky bar, there were 4 of us on sofa seats and the music was so unbelievably loud that we couldn’t even chat. It was 6:30pm and don’t get me wrong, I’m 32 and I like music for creating an atmosphere, but everyone in there was having to literally shout - it was bizarre. I had to point at our drinks on the menu as the waitress couldn’t hear a thing either! It also seemed to attract a load of kids who didn’t seem to be doing much else but taking selfies rather than buying a drink. Didn’t really give the bar the feel I think it’s supposed to have.

We then headed down to dinner for our meal which was booked at 7:30pm. As you go down, the restaurant feels as if it’s far too much in the lobby of the hotel. There was a group of lads with a McDonald’s heading up to their room, about a metre away from where you’re supposed to be having a sophisticated drink in the bar - odd!

When we got to the restaurant reception, we were told the table wasn’t ready so to go to the bar and buy a drink. We didn’t get seated till 8:30pm! They then sat us on a high bar table that they’d cobbled together next to the busy bar area. This is definitely not what we’d booked (6 weeks earlier) so we asked if we could actually sit in the restaurant like we booked and eventually at 8:40pm we finally had a table.

The food was the only redeeming factor as it was very good, but the service was appalling! We sat by the kitchen and you wouldn’t believe how many plates were going back and to the wrong tables etc. We were given the wrong starters, had sides missed off our main order and we asked for the bottles of Coke with our spirits and we received glasses already full of the Coke (which was horrendously flat). We asked for the drinks to be changed and the waitress replied “well it’s not my fault is it” - really good attitude when in the service sector! She then proceeded to be moody with us for the rest of the evening, hardly speaking a word, on her phone by the till rather than checking we’re alright, slamming down plates, not once asked if we want any sauce, Parmesan, anything else I can get you etc. We weren’t asking for much, we just wanted the basics and at the prices being charged, they’re lucky the food was good as I think we’d have just left if not.

I don’t know whether they’re understaffed or just not trained properly to promote the restaurant the kind of way Gino would want, but it couldn’t have been a worse experience. We walked away just over £200 down and literally couldn’t wait to escape the hotel lobby/cafeteria experience we were subjected to.

Top tip… for maybe 10/20% more on the bill, you can go to Gordon’s new Bread Street Kitchen down the road which is absolutely incredible and you will have a dining experience to remember for the right reasons.

Save yourself from this chaotic...

Visited for Valentine’s Day and ate off the Valentines menu. We were later on in the evening and the restaurant wasn’t overly busy.

It seemed like the staff we brand new and barely had any training.

I had ordered a prosecco, my partner a beer and a water for the table. The water and beer were delivered without my Prosecco. The starters arrived and I explained the situation to the food runner who told me he would fetch it straight away. The starters were taken away and I had to ask for it AGAIN, our waitress then walked to the till directly in my eyeline to verify this (it took two of them to figure out how to see that it had been ordered) which took a considerable amount of time. The prosecco finally arrived just in time for my main course - good job we ordered the water too. I had planned to drink the prosecco and then order a cocktail & my partner a wine after his beer but we couldn’t be bothered with the risk of it not arriving until we were ready to leave.

When our mains arrived we didn’t have any salt on our table, when I finally got the attention of our waitress we were told “there should be one on the table” with a blank stare. Yes, I am aware how restaurants work, I am asking you for salt because there isn’t salt on the table. We had pretty much finished our “chips to share” (which resembled a child’s portion) before the salt materialised.

All communication with staff was made even more difficult as we had to scream over the live music- and we weren’t particularly close. A singer with a guitarist/ pianist is a great idea, but not when they’re so loud that you’re having to shout at your partner over the table after listening to about 5 minutes of “1, 2.. 1, 2,… 1,2…”. We even saw a waitress say to another customer that she couldn’t hear them because of the music. Clearly never heard of background music and the musician couple thought this was their concert, including one misplayed chord that rung out causing a pain in my ear.

There were other aspects of the service which were also subpar eg ignored when we first arrived, empty glasses left on our table when plates were taken, our desert plates left on the table for a long time while I finished my drink. Despite this a service charge was automatically added to our bill (a table of two) which we had to ask to be removed (something we have never done before) as we couldn’t justify £1 for the service, never mind almost £8. The automatic service charge left a really bad taste.

I had wanted to try Gino’s for a while and it was a valentines treat but we were left seriously disappointed. The food was good, and probably deserved a 4 but the service was so sun-standard. I consider gino’s a mid price restaurant so was not expecting the world, but have had far better service at low priced...