ONE STAR IS TOO GENEROUS - NOT WORTH THE VISIT

In having gone to Cucina Di Giovanni in Waterstone Shopping Center for many, many years - the one night we went to celebrate my mothers birthday (10 February 2025) after the passing of my sister, my moms youngest brother and both of my mom's parents; this was not the memory we wanted to experience again, and though we've had many good times with this restaurant previously - will CERTAINLY NOT be retuning.

Having arrived for an early dinner at 15h20, there was only one table seated in the restaurant and within the 20-minutes of being seated another table had arrived and walked-out due to lack of service.

Our Service Ambassador called Clement who was asigned to us, was absolutely useless. He had no customer attention to communication and welcoming, - as the food servers and the kitchen staff were in a full-on conversation joking with each other, we had to ask for our ordered food to be brought to our table as it was sitting on the counter, - we never once got asked for a refill of drinks, once the first drink order on seating was made, - after 28-minutes of waiting for Clement to return to ask how our food was, I eventually got up to explain the food was terrible and we weren't eating it, but had been waiting and taking the time on how long it would take him to ask how our food was.

On approaching Clement the Service Ambassador with this update, he shrugged me away and told me to rather speak to Charles, who was apparently the Manager on duty.

Charles, too fami**** with complaints, did not take note to speak to the Serving Staff or the kitchen to find out where the fault had arrived. He just wanted to comp the entire bill completely and I said that was NOT how we work.

When he handed over the bill, he still added a discount and two slices of cake for the bad service on my moms birthday and I advised him again - that's not how it works. You need to keep standards and sort the problems of the restaurant out.

When I told him that I would be taking the bill and attaching his name to the review following, he was absolutely sweating and asked not to do any reviews on the service.

THE FOOD:

My mom and dad both ordered calamari and rice. The calamari was so watered down and had the taste of being frozen. The rice was NOT fresh and tasted like they'd just mixed in old rice with the "new" rice.

The famous minestroni soup was so salty, it was inedible and the bread so thin and crumply, it was like eating cardboard.

CERTAINLY NOT THE PLACE TO DINE ! ESPECIALLY NOT FOR CELEBRATORY DINNER!