Luciano's

1.5 Not Recommended

Food  1      Ambience  2      Service  2      Value  1     

We went for a birthday dinner, at the suggestion of a friend who used to come here when it was a good restaurant.

Apparently we are invisible, since we were ignored for some time after arriving. We were not permitted to order from the regular menu as we were a group of 10, no reason was given for this. We had to choose from the specials menu, which was overpriced pub food, come to think of it, I'm insulting most pubs there.

We ordered garlic bread for 10 and were given 4 pieces of garlic bread. We eventually got more, though I lived to regret that request considering how dry and tasteless it was.

After a substantial wait, the food came out in dribs and drabs, by the time the last person got their meal, which was chicken schnitzel and chips, the first person had finished their meal, gone outside, had a smoke, and come back!

I ordered steak and vegetables with prawns and Hollandaise sauce and no chips. Considering the quality of service leading up to this, it should have been no surprise that I got steak, salad, and chips!

Apparently customers don't have rights to the meal they ordered as I was treated rudely when I sought a replacement, which, however, eventually arrived.

The meat and prawns were cold and I refused to eat them. They changed the sauce without consulting us and seemed uninterested when we complained about this. No comment was made by the staff when I told them to take the meal back.

For comparison, at a restaurant I dined in recently where I didn't finish a part of the meal, the waiter personally asked why I hadn't finished and upon being informed that it was because I hadn't liked part of the meal, he informed the chef who provided a complimentary (and delightful!) seafood salad.

No such luck here! Discretion was the better part of valour so we declined their efforts to lure us into finding out how badly they could ruin a dessert!
They did provide some cold water. As per some other reviews I would not dine here again, even for free. I ended up eating a pie when I went home. Garlo's do make a nice pie, but it shouldn't be far superior to a proper restaurant meal!

It should come as no surprise to the reader to find that 1 toilet was blocked and I spotted 3 dead cockroaches in there as well. Perhaps, they tried to eat the food.

I rarely go to the effort of making a review of a restaurant, and only the fact that this restaurant was so disappointing has led me to do so now, I was glad to find a few other people have had similar experiences as otherwise I would have thought I was overreacting.

Nov 13, 2011 

1.5 Not Recommended

Food  1      Ambience  2      Service  2      Value  1     

We went to this restaurant on a Thursday night for a special occasion and really should have taken its virtual emptiness as an indicator of the type of meal we were in store for. We thought we were just early and that we'd give the place a go. However, from the outset, the waiters gave an impression of unprofessionalism and aloofness. For the whole night, we were literally the only group sitting inside the restaurant.

This is what makes the slowness of service difficult to understand. Although we kept being pestered by waitresses for our order due to their lack of coordination with each other and the fact that there was no one else to bother, the food was extremely slow to come out. I decided to let this slide.

Now I don't have excessively high standards in food, but what we were served was truly awful. The rubbery steak was way overdone, had an overpowering bitter burnt taste, and slathered with an overwhelmingly salty sauce concoction. The chicken, apart from being far below-average in taste, was dead-set raw in several places.

It was also impossible to carry any sort of conversation at times due to the deafening sound of Church St traffic right outside.

I really wanted to like this place and have a decent meal, but I saw nothing that would ever impel me to return, even for free. By far the worst restaurant I have ever been to. When we finally left the still-empty Luciano's, we noticed all the other restaurants around us buzzing with activity. And only then did we truly know why.

Oct 21, 2011 

7 Recommended

Food  9      Ambience  7      Service  6      Value  6     

I have been to lucianos on three occassions and all times I have not been disappointed. I actually feel kind of sorry for them that they have so many bad reviews. I have never had a problem with the quality of the food, I ordered the ribs once and they were quite tasty. The only complaint was the food does take a bit of time to come out, but if you are wrapped in a conversation it wont bother you enough to realise. I would recommend fixing their service so they appear a bit more professional, the waiters are dressed in jeans and tees so its pretty difficult to tell if they even work there.

Sep 13, 2011 

3.5 Below Average

Food  2      Ambience  4      Service  3      Value  5     

Ordered something vegetarian but it arrived with a big lump of chicken in it.

Sep 07, 2011 

1.8 Not Recommended

Food  2      Ambience  3      Service  1      Value  1     

A large group of us attended a birthday at Lucianos. After being seated it took an extremely long time for someone to attend to us for our drink, then food orders. We waited over 1 hr 45 minutes before the first meal was brought out and it took a further 30 minutes for the rest of the meals to come out. 2 meals were cold, 1 meal was raw chicken and 2 meals never even came to the table.

When we complained, the tall very rude and abusive so called senior staff told us in no uncertain terms - tough, you have to pay the whole bill. Then when I complained to the manager who later referred to herself as the owner, she told me she didn't care it made no difference to them. They will still get customers. I have never been to such a disappointing, rude, arrogant restaurant & I will never go back again. And judging the other reviews - no one should go there :)

Aug 22, 2011 

1.5 Not Recommended

Food  1      Ambience  3      Service  1      Value  1     

Table of 12 for a birthday dinner, started off well enough with some simple garlic pizza, 1 hour 20 minutes later, mains started to arrive, first main arrived, then 10 minutes later another few arrived. 5 minutes later another few arrived, another 10 minutes later 2 other mains still hadn't arrived. 2 guests left without getting mains after waiting over an hour and a half. One of the chicken dishes was served raw and had to be sent back.

We were given afew complimentary drinks but the senior staff of the place was really rude about the whole thing. Never go here if you expect even half decent service/food. Very disappointing.

Aug 21, 2011 

1.8 Not Recommended

Food  3      Ambience  2      Service  1      Value  1     

Large portions of food. Poor service, and a dysfunctional staff. Waited over 1 hour for our main to arrive. We were also confronted with a slight confrontation between the senior staff and a waiter as we requested to move tables, as we were placed on a large round table which seated 5, and it was just the two of us. One of the waiters hassled us for our order, and that left our mood anxious, rushed and stressed to place an order.

All staff were dressed appallingly, and for me presentation is prime. One waitress decided to even drink infront of her guest. She then came over to our table and asked if she could help us with anything else (a tactic used to free up some tables), when I had replied "well yes, our dinner would be nice". Presentation of food was horrible. Enough said, before Lucia goes crazyanos. Not recommended.

Aug 21, 2011 

1.3 Not Recommended

Food  2      Ambience  1      Service  1      Value  1     

Where do I start, we entered under a Special offer from ouffer.com which seemed very good value. We were seated and then it took 15-20 minutes for someone to take our order. There was 1 other table with people on it at the time.

It then took a 20 minute to get the entrees, another 20 minutes to get the mains. By an hour and a half mark we had eaten the majority of the meal and thats when the wheels fell off. It then took 15 minutes to get attention, and we waited another half an hour until we walked out still without dessert two and half hours from starting.

The food was ok, the service was terrible, If I could have rated in negatives I would have. There seemed to be only 2 real waiter/ess there and absolutely no organisation.

We also have a $50 voucher to use again but will never go back there again, even for a basically free meal!

Aug 21, 2011 

8.5 Highly Recommended

Food  8      Ambience  8      Service  8      Value  10     

Came back a few weeks after my first 'too salty' experience and was pleasantly surprised. There was 11 of us in our group.

Their lunch deal (available on weekends too) was great value. All of our meals were from the huge lunch specials menu which were up to 30% off the regular menu price but also including a wine, beer or soft drink. I had the ribs, which were big and succulent. We also had pastas, risottos, pizza, garlic bread, we were happy with what we got. (I asked for less salt on the pastas and risotto, just to be safe).

Service was not as spectacular as it was the first time we were there, but it was ok considering it was lunch time, and busier. They were also pram and baby friendly (we had 2 in our group).

Aug 12, 2011 

3 Below Average

Food  4      Ambience  6      Service  1      Value  1     

We will not be going back to Luciano’s again. My workmates and I went to Luciano's for dinner last night (we were considering Luciano's for work functions, this was our second visit).

We ordered a gluten free pasta, asked the waitress 3 times whether it was gluten free, getting confirmation each time. Our coeliac workmate was given gluten pasta, and it wasn't until we asked for a 4th time that the waitress checked with the chef and found out it was not gluten free. Luckily our workmate is not an extreme coeliac.

During this time we were waiting on our water and 2 additional salads for 30 minutes. After asking 3 different wait staff a total of 5 times we got our salads, at the end of our meal. We also got our water, when poured out, out came a bug.

We provided our constructive feedback politely to our waitress, who did not seem to pass our feedback back to the manager/head chef. Upon paying the bill which came with several chocolates, we had the gluten pasta removed but was still charged for the rest of our meal, despite all the bad service we received. We complained one last time to the head chef who answered with "oh you didn't get our chocolates for that?"

Not once did we get an apology or anything to redeem their bad service. The food was not bad, but due to the extremely poor service and no effort into rectifying this by the business, we will not be going back to Luciano’s in Parramatta.

Jul 21, 2011