Fratelli — Restaurant in Northern Ireland

I'm posting this review 2 months after having visited Fratelli Galgorm with my family on 9th December 2023. The reason I've waited to leave the public review until now was to allow the galgorm group the opportunity to revert back to me but unfortunately they haven't, despite multiple emails from myself explaining my complaint and asking for an update/resolution.

We had booked for the Santa experience with the galgorm and booked a reservation to done in Fratelli as this was the only location left with available bookings. My sister and I had recently both had our first babies and wanted to have a memorable family day out to kick off the Christmas celebrations for the first time with children. Given that both our children were less than 6 months old, we didn't mind paying extra for a luxury experience, given that the children wouldn't be of age to know about Santa, it was more for the benefit of a family day out and making memories. Safe to say I wish I'd have taken the kids to a local shopping centre to see Santa as I would bet it would have been an better experience overall and for a fraction of the price.

When making the booking I advised that we would need space in the restaurant for 2 prams. To sum up, they did not take this into consideration and placed us in front of the kitchen ( which was constantly busy with waiters ifting hot plates etc over our heads). They asked my sister push her pram into the corner up against a boiling hot raidator. Also this was in a corner where high chair were kept, and waiters were in and out lifting high chairs over my niece's head. They asked me to push my pram up against a fire exit door, at which point I politely refused given it was far enough from where our table was and my child was 3 months old. I was then told to squeeze my pram between the table and a cutlery desk. My child was sleeping in the pram, whilst waiters stacked glasses 2-3 levels high above where he slept. Complete health and safety risk. I'd like to say this was the worst of my complaint, but was just the beginning.

The service in terms of the waiting staff was appalling. Table not cleared after our mains and when I asked for it to be cleared the waitress looked offended that I'd asked the question and lifted 2 plates before disappearing altogether. The packages was a 4 course meal to include tea and coffee, but we had to again to request this. No spoons were provided with the cups and saucers, so if we wanted sugar or milk we ended up stirring this with the rear end of a knife left on the table. At the end, no one came to check was all ok or offr the bill. I asked at the front desk and paid what was outstanding just so we could leave.

The food was below average. Starters were cold, the main was undercooked, dry and no condiments normally accompanying a Christmas dinner were provided i.e. gravy or cranberry sauce. I was beyond stressed and angry to even eat dessert. Overall it tasted as though the food had been reheated and thrown at us.

The worst and most shocking part was when my sister and I went to use the baby changing facilities. We queued for a while for the toilets, realising the baby changing was in the disabled toilet which isn't unusual, however, seems to be who didn't seem to know why the door was locked. After another few minutes, the manager approached us to advise this was out of order and asked could we use the normal toilets or alternatively walk across to gillies. That day we had torrential rain and he expected us to take them out into the cold across the courtyard to have their nappy changed. Really? Considering this was a family event, they should have expected parents would need access to changing facilities.

Overall, it was a shocking experience and I could say much more if it wasn't for the cap on the word limit. Supposedly a 5 star resort that I would give 0 stars to if I could. To add insult to injury, despite phone calls and multiple emails to follow up, no one from the galgorm have come back to me to resolve this. Absolute disgrace, do not give this...

Awful. One star because my girlfriends food was ok. Sat down, 15 minutes later we ordered. I had bruschetta with N’duja sausage. It was about two inches thick of dry stale tasting bread with some kind of sausage mush that tasted dry and like it was from a jar, topped with way too much cheese. An insult to Bruschetta. How you can mess up a simple bruschetta is beyond me, but that trend unfortunately continued. After the starter I asked for a cocktail and the waitress told me she’d come back after taking the plates, never came back. The Carbonara was actually just a complete disgrace. It was linguine served in what can only be described as a bowl of milk. After draining it into my napkin I realised this was as close to a carbonara as a banana sandwich. There were two lumps of chicken which, and I do not know how they did this, was ok underneath but bone dry on top like it was sat under a heat lamp for a long time. There was some sort of red breadcrumb stuff or maybe burned seasoning all over it. A carbonara is probably one of the most simple basic Italian dishes and somehow they seemed to try to overcomplicate it. The cream was just poured in and not reduced or cooked off, or even thickened. My partner’s Garlic bread and pizza was ok, nothing special, but at least it was a pizza and not some artisan bread loaf pretending to be pizza. Then the absolute worst dessert I have ever seen in my life. “Coconut rice”, sounded decent, 5 star hotel, must be good right? WRONG! What I received as pictured, was a tiny bowl of cold, plain, bland, refrigerated congealed rice with some desiccated coconut flakes on top. I was able to leave my spoon standing up in it because it was so hard. My partner had ice cream, which was just a regular a tub of ice cream. Chef needs to re-jig this menu, because it’s not good at all, and it’s borderline false advertising. That was not a proper bruschetta, and was not a proper linguine. The only reason I bothered paying and not complaining on the night was that service was so bad and I was so annoyed I just didn’t want to wait around for someone to eventually come over. Galgorm would want to seriously reconsider this place, especially when service and food in Gillie’s is so much better. I’ve had finer dining in...

Shockingly poor service, dead fly on main dish, an all round horrible experience this place has gone downhill massively. I’ve ate at fratelli many times over the years both at Galgorm and Belfast city centre and always had a good experience with tasty food. However on this occasion, which was dinner for my 30th birthday; it was a complete disappointment. We stood for over 5 minutes at the entrance waiting to be acknowledged by any staff member, countless waiters and waitresses walked back and forth, we had to walk over and ask someone could we check in for our booking. It was another 10 minutes after being seated before anyone returned to take a drink order. Our food then arrived before the drinks which we waited a total of 20 minutes for the 2 drinks. We were given the wrong pizza so we sent this back and in the meantime we then noticed a dead fly stuck to the plate of our pasta. They brought the pizza back with the missing toppings added on, and a new pasta without a dead fly this time.. but unfortunately the pizza had a strong taste of liquorice and the pasta was hard and undercooked the food was basically inedible The whole experience was just a complete let down we just wanted to leave as quickly as possible. The manager was apologetic and kindly removed the food from the bill, which was just as well because I wouldn't have been happy to pay almost £50 for the 2 dishes that...