Birba — Restaurant in Palm Springs

Big old yikes from me. Definitely an amazing beautiful place with a great atmosphere; reservations clearly are essential if you would like to sit at a table. The food and drinks were great as well; the pizza was delicious and the pasta just as good. My main reason for not giving this place more stars was the service. Namely with the Maitre D'/hosts working at front of house. I was in town and decided to try my luck with Birba as I've eaten next door for lunch [cheeky's which is great] so I rocked up and walked up towards the two hostesses at the podium at the entrance. I caught one of them turning to the other after looking me up and down and saying something; micro aggressions are nothing new to me. Whatever.

I asked if there were any openings and was told no till 8.45 which is fine, I understand its a busy place, I was told that there is full bar service and I said ok great thanks. I stood there thinking that someone would show me to a seat. The host didn't bother to show me the way to the bar or to a seat or anything so we just made our way over to sit wherever we wanted. Again, ok cool that's fine, clearly they don't do that here and take folks to where they sit, unlike other places around or in the same price range.

We sat, and the lovely bar tender took our drinks and food order, he was very friendly and nice and made our experience much better. I've worked in restaurants and bars for almost a decade in the past, and I counted numerous empty tables that had not been seated in the entire time we were there; I don't know if this place turns over tables multiple times a night and again, all good. All in all the place was lovely, the food great, just the two Maitre D's there really brought me and my companions down with their arrogance, rudeness and lack of any hospitality. It felt like I was basically bothering them by existing and being there. Still, if you can grab a res it's a nice place to...

This was a terrible experience; the only high point was our very kind server. We heard this was a great pizza place; when we went, we were advised, after being turned away the first night and making a reservation for the next night, which the restaurant confirmed twice by text message, and after finally being seated 20 minutes after our reservation time and given menus and served water, that there was NO PIZZA. Our seating was on a patio covered by an ugly noisy white plastic tent with small clear windows. The lighting was terrible and we needed to ask for a candle to read the menus. We asked to be moved, as there were plenty of empty tables by this time, but that never happened.

Besides the unavailable pizza the menu shows three pasta dishes and a bunch of appetizers; we went with the latter. The meatballs in a tomato sauce arrives promptly and were quite good. Then the salad, fresh greens and a lemony dressing, also nice. Then some kind of huge glob of buratta which we did not order, and they took back. Then weird little crostini with a sweetish glaze. And finally, en entire roasted head of cauliflower, which was actually only partly roasted and "served" with some kind of unidentifiable sauce containing a few capers and a meagre amount of parmesan-like cheese. I would be embarrassed to serve something that mediocre, plus in presentation it looked pretty much like some animal's brain. At that point we had had enough and left.

Throughout the meal we heard people at other tables struggling with similar situations, so it wasn't just us. And other than our server, no apologies. The greeter was brusque and offered no apology for keeping us waiting. No one showed up from the back end to walk around the tables and offer apology.

I guess we must have picked a bad night to go but really... I will never return and my recommendation based on my experience...

Food is good. Attitude of restaurant is arrogant. We made an 8pm reservation on 20 March 2015. After we had waited an hour for our food, my wife inquired about the delay. We were told the kitchen was in "chaos" and that a manager would talk to us shortly. No manager appeared. At 90 minutes our waitress reappeared, after a further inquiry about our food. She informed us that a dish my son had ordered was no longer available. We left.

Good or great food is necessary, but not sufficient to make a restaurant a great place to go. You have to take care of your customers and treat them with some respect. My son was hungry and asked if they could at least provide some kind of snack, with the delay with the main course. Their response was , " We don't do that."

These restaurants, Birba and Cheeky's are good, but there's now a cockiness about them. We're successful now, so if you have a bad experience, tough. I told the owner of our hotel about this experience. I had recommended Birba to some friends - but retracted it after this. Our hotel in Palm Springs is always asking guests about the restaurants they've been to, to make recommendations to other guests. I would avoid Birba until these service and attitude problems are resolved.

There are many good reviews of Birba and for food quality, they are deserved. I suggest they learn to treat customers with greater care. They might have tried to make it a pleasanter dining experience if there were delays beyond their control; a snack, a glass of wine, an apology. It doesn't take much. But it seemed to be too much for them.

I have never written a review like this, but Birba needs to hear about it. They weren't interested in listening when we were there. I hope people will think twice before spending their time and...