Zizzi - Central St Giles

We had a very good meal, the service was excellent and all the waiters were very attentive. The food too, we ordered gluten-free pizza and gluten-free appetizer and everything was delicious. Thin and crispy dough. The dessert, a gluten-free brownie, was also delicious.

Good gluten-free selection. Very good food

Me and my partner went to Central St Giles Zizzi’s on Monday evening and I must say, it was probably one of my worst experience in terms of customer service ever. I would like to start this review by saying that we don’t usually leave reviews, but after last night, felt compelled to do so. We were welcomed by a man who seemed unhappy and bored, with no warmth whatsoever and brought to our table where menus were given with no explanation whatsoever. At that point, me and my girlfriend looked at each other thinking that there was a strange vibe going on. After not even 5 minutes, that same server came asking if we’re ready to order , even though we were both still looking at the menu. We went on to ordering drinks and were told that they were out of beer, coke and sprite because the delivery was arriving the day after. Now, we both work in hospitality so we do understand that, the problem lies elsewhere. The waiter told us that without any apologies or any attention to the customer. But anyway. After ordering drinks, another server came around to give them to us, alongside the pasta crisps (Zizzi’s signature) that we both really like. He put them on our table after taking them away half a second later, realising we had the bottle with the yellow flower which meant that someone at the table was Gluten Free. We explained to him that my girlfriend had no problem with crossed-contamination and that we would still like them on our table. He explained the logistics around food safety (which we both understand completely as we also work in hospitality as I said) but despite our effort to make him understand that it was our choice and it was fine, he took them away anyway. And was rather firm. Again very different to happy customer service. What a good start to our meal. We then went on to waiting at least 20 minutes before someone came to take our food order. The server that came, who was the one that welcomed us, was chatting to his colleagues whilst attending us which I found profoundly disrespectful. My partners pizza arrived first and there was no sign of my pasta. Simply because they had forgotten it clearly. My partner kindly waited for me, as we wanted to eat together. That meant that her pizza was almost cold by the time my pasta finally arrived (10 minutes later). I would like to add that during the entire time, the chefs in the kitchen were arguing quite loudly, and unlucky for Zizzi’s, their kitchen is open to everyone. One of the chefs would slam plates down which was extremely annoying, as we were sat not far from them at all. Overall, everyone in that venue seemed in a bad mood and acted as if it was busy and they had no time to properly attend their guests, but I counted 9 tables for 4 waiters whilst we were there, which from my experience is far from a busy shift. Other customers were also struggling to get a servers attention so it clearly wasn’t just us!