Gino D'Acampo Liverpool — Restaurant in Liverpool

I had taken my son and a friend to Gino’s 360 Degrees on the top floor to savour the view as well as Nebbiolo Monfirrato Avamposti starters and drinks, all for £45. The panoramic view through half-height panelled glass of the Waterfront of our great city of Liverpool was breathtaking 360C.  I was served by a very loquacious Polish waiter who was a fountain of knowledge; the encounter culminated in an erudite discourse with my son on the merits of various designer trainers, a topic not entirely associated with a 360 degrees viewing of Liverpool, but welcome non the less, at least by my son. This happenstance stimulated a further investigation of the main restaurant downstairs at a later date.

Two weeks later, I went back, I dined in the Main Restaurant on the first floor of Innside Liverpool, a contemporary utilitarian building of glass, steal, and concrete. Inside, the restaurant was modernistic in design with exposed pipework, cables, and metal beams adorning a lofty ceiling reminiscent of dockland warehouse conversions. Although it occupied a large space, the atmosphere was more intimate with smaller sections partitioned off by dimmed lights in elevated wicker baskets with small flickering candles at table level. There were comfortable bench-style seats arranged in front of the large windows running down one side, with small tables and matching chairs placed centrally, and intriguingly-lit bars along the other two sides exuding a romantic feeling or the right place for an informal meeting

Gino d’Acampo, has an extensive menu and wine list specialising in meals for the discerning palate, and it has to be said for the rather deeper wallet. Martina, the manageress, and Jan, our waitress, were so helpful in making recommendations. We started with an Aperol Spritz and a Lazzaroni Amaretto and settled for Lamb Pugliese and Aubergine Parmigiana with sides of spicy spinach and “zucchini fritte”. The lamb was succulent to the taste in a rich sauce and the parmigiana was also well presented. The taste of an Italian parmigiana can differ, and this one was not too far. The dessert course was an impressive “Piatto di Dolci”, consisting of a small Nutella chocolate cheesecake, small glass of panna cotta and small tea cups of tiramisu, all beautifully arranged, rich and sensuous to the taste. On an amusing note, although the toilets were a real revelation being bright and clean, the symbols on the entry doors needed a bit of deciphering, the small skirt and short trousers were difficult to distinguish perhaps suggesting a possible merger to unisex facilities in the future in fact so confusion that I was shocked to realised that I have used the male toilet. All in all, we had a great night out reinforced by a very kind and considerate staff. We came out feeling well satisfied with an enjoyable experience, but this gratification is to be expected when the bill for a two-course meal for two approaches the hundred...

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...

I had prebooked afternoon tea for 7 of us 3-4 weeks in advance, I had tried calling and left several messages to discuss requirements, unfortunately nobody ever returned the calls. On arrival we were offered a high stool table setting even though one of the party was heavily pregnant which we challenged eventually given the lower seating. Whilst we waited for the last two guests to arrived we ordered some drinks from the cocktail selection, they were delicious and very refreshing. Disappointingly though when our final guests arrived I dis have to ask staff to come and take their order for drinks. It was then after one hour of us sitting there I asked about the food and was told we weren't booked in for food and that we were unable to have the afternoon tea as they hadn't planned for us. I produced the email with the booking references and the special requests I'd made at the time of booking and explained that I had tried calling also to confirm but was never responded to. The floor manager did apologise and said he'd see what they could do in the kitchen. He did ask if there were any dietary requirements and was advise one vegetarian, three different small plates of tapas arrived and a plate of arrancini which only served six and not the seven in the party, the only choice for the vegetarian was an arrancini ball and one piece of brushetta, the other two dishes had meat and fish on. The bread the tapas was served on was very hard to eat and difficult to cut, we know sourdough can be this way but it was challenging to eat. The desserts were delicious though and we did enjoy these. In view of all the obstacles we were met with the floor manager did offer 25% discount which I accepted, but would have preferred the full experience of the afternoon tea I ordered originally for our...