Don Giovanni Brasseria

Reviews

• Owner hid in the corner

  Seems a nice place on the surface...‎ We were warned about how long service could take but we did not heed the advice. It took 1 hour for our main course to arrive however this was not the main issue. 1) As we all know fresh pasta should only take a couple of minutes to cook 2) One dish contained packeted pasta and to top it all was still not cooked!!! And we are not talking al dente!! 3) This we could possibly forgive, but it was how the situation was handled. There was no apology forth coming, we were told the owner/manager was not at the restuarent. On leaving we were informed outside by staff that he was sitting in the restuarant the entire time (in Chef whites) but could clearly not face his customers and defend his his food, that speaks volumes.

  Paulh
  Review Date: 12/07/2009 Report review
• Avoid if you're hungry & expect to eat that night!

  We were pleasantly surprised when entering the restaurant - the décor was light and airy, with crisp white table cloths. It was just after 8pm on a Wednesday evening and the place was fairy busy, but we chose promptly. It took a while to get the waiter's attention to even take our order, which should have warned us.. After that we waited, and waited and waited. There were four of us dining and we had all ordered pasta dishes. We saw the tables nearby who had arrived after us being served and still no explanation was forthcoming from the waiting staff, so in turn we all caught a different waiter's eye and asked how long it would be.. It became a kind of game to pass the time. We were eventually told that the delay was caused because the pasta was being cooked from fresh, but we were unimpressed as we had thought this was a given in an Italian restaurant with these pretensions. In summary, we waited over an hour for our meals, had no apologies and were met with an insulted expression when we suggested a conciliatory gesture would be to knock our second bottle of £20 wine of the bill. But the killing blow came when we asked the waiter to check with the manager/owner. He came back after a few minutes and said neither was there and he had no authority to do anything.. On exiting we were treated to a sarcastic "goodbye" by a gent in chef whites and afterwards a well meaning man outside pointed him out and said "that's the owner don't you know..?". Clearly the owner of Don Giovanni dies not need return business and anyone who dares to complain about having to wait for simple pasta dishes is beneath his contempt. If you are looking for warm friendly service please avoid Don Giovanni and head for somewhere like Due Amici on Royal Parade in Chislehust.. If you want to feel insignificant and stupid head for Don Giovanni!

  Georginap
  Review Date: 10/07/2009 Report review