Ant Hallam

Review of Ultimo Italian Restaurant

Can honestly say this was the worst dining experie...

Can honestly say this was the worst dining experience of my life and that is no exaggeration! Normally me and my wife wouldn't dream of eating in an Italian restaurant in Bali and would eat local cuisine. But after 11 days of local warungs we needed some variety, this is the biggest mistake I've ever made! So we booked our table in advance as after reading the reviews about the place it seemed really good and looked as though it got very busy. We arrived 5 minutes earlier than our reservation time and was shown to our table. It was the furthest table away from anything, tucked right away in the back far right of the restaurant, not the best start. 15 minutes then passed until anybody even bothered to come and take either a drink and/or food order. 5 minutes later we finally receive our first drinks. 10 minutes later our starter arrived, which was ok however nothing special. By this point I've already finished my first beer and ordered another one. 5 minutes pass... still no sign of my second beer, I ask one of the other waiting staff about it, another 5 minutes pass and still no alcoholic beverage, I repeat the process again and another 5 minutes pass... still no sign of this really hard to find local beer called Bintang. It's not like I've seen at least 3 other tables receive their drinks in the time I've been waiting. So its now aporoximately 55 minutes since ordering and no sign of our mains or my elusive second beer. We only ordered two very simple pizzas mind. By this point I've completely lost patience with the complete incompetence and frankly abysmal service in this restaurant and ask a waitress to cancel our mains and bring me the bill for the one starter and one round of drinks we've so far been served in almost an hour. 5 minutes later another waitress comes over and asks what the problem is? My patience wears even thinner now. I simply say that I want my mains cancelled and wish for the bill as we are leaving, due to the poor service or lack of. This being the second time I've stated this now to two separate people! 5 further minutes pass and my bill does not materialise, however what does is the two pizzas we ordered over an hour ago which I have since asked to cancel on two separate occasions! Needless to say i wasn't impressed and even after the wait, the food did not even look edible. But we tried to eat some of it as it was there now. I will add that I have still not received the elusive second beer even by this point. My wife asks for said beer for a fourth time as the pizzas are placed down. It never appeared! I managed two mouthfuls of that disgusting rubber like thing they called a pizza and could eat no more. Now I ask for the bill and third and final time and decide to cut my losses and go and eat somewhere else. The bill arrives this time in a timely fashion. To the restaurants credit due to us questioning the time it has taken for our food and probably the fact that most of it was inedible they kindly removed the pizzas from our bill. I don't even think most of the random dogs or cats wandering the streets of Bali would even go anywhere near eating the food we was served this evening. But alas I am going off topic now. So we paid and left and went a few restaurants down to enjoy a Greek gyro where we was sat down, fed and watered all in 20 minutes! Shock... miracles do happen! So yes avoid this place unless you want to waste aporoximately 90 minutes of your life being ignored, with an unquenchible first and like being served inedible food!