Zizzi - Milton Keynes, The Hub — Restaurant in Milton Keynes

I recently visited Zizzi. My partner had a coach to catch at 9pm for paid training, so at 6pm we had 3 hours to spare. We decided to go for something to eat, and to try Zizzi. The food was lovely. One of my favourite meals is carbonara, and Zizzis carbonara was unrivalled. BUT...........

Carbonara does not take 2 hours to cook.

When we arrived, we were seated instantly, and the reastarant still had about half it's tables unoccupied. Service time therefore should have reflected this. About 20 minutes after arriving we were asked what we wanted to drink, and decided on tap water. About 20 minutes later, it arrived. We were then asked what we wanted to order for food. I had calamari, while my partner had cheesy garlic bread for starter, and my partner had a vegetarian pizza while I had carbonara for mains. It took 45 minutes for the starter to arrive. Granted, it was nice, but I can't for the life of my understand why it took 45 minutes.

about 2 hours later, our main meal arrived. Why on earth did this take 2 hours?! I have never in my life experienced service so slow. The most bizarre thing about this, there were about 3 waiting staff, and 4 chefs. It did however appear that on the majority of occasions we'd look around and see the staff casually chatting. We didn't go for deserts but the table next to us did, and we over heard these 2 ladies talking about how it took 45 minutes for 2 small bits of cake.

About half way through when our waitress who had promised to return with parmesan cheese never did, we opted for a different waitress and this helped a little in the fact we now had someone on hand to let us know what delays there are going to be and her customer service was a far improvement from the last, however without ridding the delays, customer services can only do so much, and we weren't even offered a discount.

Btw, that coach trip that was 3 hours after we'd turned up at the restaurant? Well, that had been and gone by time we'd managed to get out. I'm really torn between one and two stars, because the food was nice and our waitress (who I got the opinion wasn't too impressed with the company herself and was only there to pay her uni fees) was lovely, however the helpful descriptions of each (1 star - hated it, 2 stars, disliked it) leads me to 1 star, and this is fair for a review of the restaurant, and not the chain. I'd never go back. For the service alone I despised it, and would rather had gone for a big mac!

Before writing this review, I did read reviews for this and the other local Zizzi (which is a stones throw away) and noted that slow service was a common complaint about this branch, but not in the other one. Therefore, I 'may' attempt Zizzi again one day, because couple the great food with U-turn on customer services, this could have been one of my best eating out experiences ever. Instead, it...

Having 3 kids and a 4th on the day it's not always to have a date nights, but last weekend we were able to have a date night using a buyagift voucher I was kindly gifted last year.

I am not the biggest fan of chain restaurants as I either find them lacking in food quality, service or both.

My experience at Zizis was overall pretty pleasant - We were greeted and hold about a free garlic bread offer if we sign up.

I had the free garlic bread, calamory to start, stickypig pizza for main and the Brownie & Honeycomb Pizzette from the set menu.

The free garlic bread was a good portion (I would imagine a 7" garlic bread cut up) the garlic butter (at least one mine and my wifes one) were really lacking - it was mostly like eating plan bread and was a bit dedious to eat - i'd be dissapointed if I paid £5.90 for it - but as it was free in exchange for a bit of my data it wasn't bad.

The calomari was actually very well cooked- it had a nice coating and was very tender - however some seasoning wouldn't go a miss, even a bit more salt would have helped.

The sticky pig pizza was very nice, however tomato based size needed more cheese as did my wifes Rustica Meat Sofia pizza. Both pizzas could have done with more sauce too.

The Brownie & Honeycomb Pizzette was very good and no complaints here very good value - my wifes brownie however was sad very small and weirdly no where near as nice or as gooey as the brownie topping on the Pizzette (i'd say the amount of brownie topping on the pizzette near matched the entirey of my wifes brownie - conclusion the brown is not good value).

Cocktails were ok but small and definitely not worth the value.

Service has great, the waitress was a little robotic but very proactive and the courses flowed in perfect unison, no waiting for anything (aside from the bill which didn't take long to flag her down).

I have mentioned a fair few room for improvements but it's probably the best experience i've had in a chain restaurant, the food is not 5 star, but it doesn't feel commercial & mass produced like many chain restuarants.

Overall the food is a high 3 but the overall...

Its been a long time since I experienced service as poor as I did today. Booked two adults and three children. Arrived and was greeted warmly and everything started well.

Ordered starters and mains for everyone

Children's starters arrived promptly and looked lovely. As the children had nearly finished I had to ask where mine was to which the waiter minutes after being asked brought mine over without apologising.

Children's mains were brought out as I was half way through my starter. I didnt mind this so much seeing as they were hungry but then they had practically finished their main course and my wife and I had not had ours brought over.

I asked where ours were to which the waiter went off but didn't return. 10 minutes later our mains came out except my wife's was wrong and had to be returned. Mine was left on the table next to a pile of dirty plates.

I refused to eat mine until my wife's had been brought out and the pile of dirty plates removed which was another 10 minutes

The waiter did apologise for getting my wife's wrong but that was it.

I left mine as by this time the children were tired (2, 5 and 8) and had already been sat at the table for nearly 90 minutes.

I asked for the bill which they brought over and without even asking why both my wife and I had left nearly all the food on our plates charged us the full amount and didn't even ask why we had not eaten or how the meal was.

I was expecting him too but clearly didn't care.

In short, kids food was lovely and they ate well - my wife and I had not experienced service like that in years. They didn't even say goodbye as we were leaving. For context - there was 5 other tables eating at the time and 6 members of staff so cant say they were busy.

Will not be...