Il Giardino

4 Reviews on “Il Giardino”

• Guillermo Van Veen

  I seldomly had such a bad restaurant experience in Joburg.I came 2 to 3 times a year for the past 5 years and was always satisfied until today.To the restaurant’s defense, plenty of large corporate year end functions were there, but if you can’t cater us for functions + walking customers, chose between the two.In a nutshell:- 15 min to get drinks- 20 min after the drinks to get starters- No salt, pepper, olive oil on the table despite us having livers and a salad as starts. By the time they came, the livers were cold.- The band’s noise level: their music is nice but you can’t hear the person in front of you speaking- Every time I had to get a waiter, had to call 3 to 5 times for one to come (admitedly, not their fault, they were overwhelmed and too little to handle such volume of customers)Then came the worst part, the mains. One kingklip, grossly overcooked and drenched in sauce.One gorgonzola gnocchi. The gorgonzola was nowhere to be found (sauce was bland cream) and soggy gnocchi.We left without eating the mains, the waiters proposed to replace it but after 1h30 for a starter and a main, we did not have the courage to endure another half time.At this point, I asked for the bill to 2 waiters, one tried to call the manager (in 3 min the manager failed to show), after seeing the second waiter going to another table instead of going for the bill, I headed straight to the counter to pay.Even if invited for a free meal, I will not spend petrol to come back.Paid over R700 for a dreadful experience. Contacted the owner by email, no answer to date. PS: The menu is confused as hell, you can’t distinguish categories, mains, starters due to the bad categorization, lack of spacing and lack of strong color contrast. That’s a detail compared to the rest.

  March 20, 2020, 2:35 am

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• Danelle Keulder

  Food was amazing and setting is beautiful, but both waiters and managers lack proper training and etiquette. Multiple customers complaining that service is lack luster and waiters are more interested in chatting among themselves than paying attention to customers. I may add that they were not at all busy. Stunning setting and their pizzas are pretty damn delicious, but I can’t imagine how terrible the service must be over weekends when it is actually busy. Unfortunately won’t be back unless the owners invest in some serious staff training.

  March 20, 2020, 2:35 am

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• MelC

  The food was pretty average but the relaxed feel was great. The service was also decent.

  March 3, 2020, 11:04 am

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• Esté Walter

  Smallest pasta portion ever. Chef had no more penne !!!No anchovies in stock. Most expensive wine list for average wines. Drug addicts in street outside very scary. We will never go back

  February 20, 2020, 2:35 am

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