Zizzi - Central St Giles — Restaurant in London

Me and my partner went to Central St Giles Zizzi’s on Monday evening and I must say, it was probably one of my worst experience in terms of customer service ever. I would like to start this review by saying that we don’t usually leave reviews, but after last night, felt compelled to do so. We were welcomed by a man who seemed unhappy and bored, with no warmth whatsoever and brought to our table where menus were given with no explanation whatsoever. At that point, me and my girlfriend looked at each other thinking that there was a strange vibe going on. After not even 5 minutes, that same server came asking if we’re ready to order , even though we were both still looking at the menu. We went on to ordering drinks and were told that they were out of beer, coke and sprite because the delivery was arriving the day after. Now, we both work in hospitality so we do understand that, the problem lies elsewhere. The waiter told us that without any apologies or any attention to the customer. But anyway. After ordering drinks, another server came around to give them to us, alongside the pasta crisps (Zizzi’s signature) that we both really like. He put them on our table after taking them away half a second later, realising we had the bottle with the yellow flower which meant that someone at the table was Gluten Free. We explained to him that my girlfriend had no problem with crossed-contamination and that we would still like them on our table. He explained the logistics around food safety (which we both understand completely as we also work in hospitality as I said) but despite our effort to make him understand that it was our choice and it was fine, he took them away anyway. And was rather firm. Again very different to happy customer service. What a good start to our meal. We then went on to waiting at least 20 minutes before someone came to take our food order. The server that came, who was the one that welcomed us, was chatting to his colleagues whilst attending us which I found profoundly disrespectful. My partners pizza arrived first and there was no sign of my pasta. Simply because they had forgotten it clearly. My partner kindly waited for me, as we wanted to eat together. That meant that her pizza was almost cold by the time my pasta finally arrived (10 minutes later). I would like to add that during the entire time, the chefs in the kitchen were arguing quite loudly, and unlucky for Zizzi’s, their kitchen is open to everyone. One of the chefs would slam plates down which was extremely annoying, as we were sat not far from them at all. Overall, everyone in that venue seemed in a bad mood and acted as if it was busy and they had no time to properly attend their guests, but I counted 9 tables for 4 waiters whilst we were there, which from my experience is far from a busy shift. Other customers were also struggling to get a servers attention so it clearly...

I visited Zizzi today with my family and honestly the service was appalling. We waited 10 minutes to be seated, even though two members of staff saw us waiting at the door. When finally getting seated we once again waited a while for someone to take our order which would be excusable if the restaurant was busy, but it wasn’t. Our food was all very nice hence the 2 star rating. Our mains arrived before we even finished our starters, when the starters were taken away all of our cutlery was taken with it and we had to ask for new sets of cutlery to be able to eat our food. While eating our mains we were not checked on once and as we finished we tried calling a server over to order our desserts (as we ordered the 3 course set menu) but we were quite honestly ignored by the staff after multiple members look at our table and even made eye contact with me. A couple tries and around 10 minutes later we were able to order our desserts. When it was time for our payment we asked a server for the bill who was more than happy to give it to us, we also asked if we could use a discount we had, which she agreed to. A couple moments later the, seemingly, manager came over and asked to see our discount again, he then rudely and confrontationally asked us quite personal and unreasonable questions about the discount. In the end we ended up receiving our discount, but it shouldn’t have been this difficult. Overall, our experience with the more higher staff like the manager and those not wearing a uniform was not good as they were in general quite rude. However, the food was delicious and the atmosphere wasn’t too bad even though there were some things that could've...

Zizzi is our go to place anywhere we travel to and they're usually amazing however our experience here was not very good. We booked a good few days in advance as we had a theatre performance go go to. Booked in for 5pm got there 5 minutes early and wete seen to and seated immediately- fab. Upon being greeted we were advised that our table was needed back after 1hr 15 minutes. OK fair enough they're busy but if we were wanting 3 courses that's pushing a bit should be at least a 2hr space for a table. Our order was taken within a reasonable time- enough time to browse even though we knew what we wanted. Drinks arrived in good time. The food was super quick- literally within 10 minutes of ordering our food was in front of us (a lasagne with extra filling and a margherita pizza) which we thought oh fab were starving.

The pizza was perfectly fine absolutely no issues however my partners lasagne tastes as though it had been made and just reheated, the centre wasn't hot only lukewarm and there was hardly any beschmel sauce nevermind the extra filling he paid £3 for! Not impressed.

And to top it off- nobody checked back on us if we were OK, nobody asked if we needed more drinks, and the waiter very rudely trying taking our plates whilst I still had a slice of pizza in my hand.

All in all it felt like everything was rushed like they couldn't wait to get us in, fed and shipped out again. By far the worst Zizzi experience we...