Zibibbo

03/12/09

So great

by KellyW at Citysearch

Lovely wine list although a little bit loud. Lovely wine list although a little bit loud. Lovely wine list although a little bit loud

• Pros: Example: best croissants in town
• Cons: Noisy and smelly

01/28/08

Horrible service, buggy (literally!) drinks

by kayatcitys at Citysearch

Based on a good experience a few years back, I decided to hold a birthday party for a friend here. I called and was told that they have other big parties at 730 that will make the kitchen busy, so they gave me an 8pm reservation. We got to our table and it was 25 minutes before a server showed up. Some guests that arrived late were treated rudely by the hostess.

Then the birthday boy found a mosquito swimming in his drink. We tried hard to attract attention (i.e. said "excuse me" and then waved hands wildly in the air) when the waiter came to the other big table in the room. He finally noticed us about ten minutes later. In the mean time, the birthday boy's wife (a vegetarian) discovered some suspicious brown tidbits in her gnocchi, that she had, naturally, asked for without meat. Turned out, they had forgotten to not put the bacon in.

This is easily the worst service I've seen in my life (and I've even been to Vienna!). If you want to eat with a large party, find *any* other place.

• Pros: Ambience, Tables for large parties
• Cons: Service is abysmal

04/28/07

Couldn't believe it!!!

by glavston at Citysearch

So my husband and I and another couple went there last night for dinner and it was just terrible what we saw. We were seated in a booth overlooking the open kitchen, seemed nice at first. But it turned really bad! We saw the chef in front of us, who we later learned was the executive chef!! constantly yelling angrily at the cooks and the waiters. He walked up and down the kitchen obviously mad and yelling at everyone around him. My husband joked that at least we were getting a show. I've had tempermental bosses before but this was extreme, and I felt so sorry for everyone he yelled. And if that's not the worst part, he said that "he was looking to kick someone's a** (butt)"!!! We just couldn't believe that this was going on right in front of us. Never going back and promoting such a place. DON'T SIT IN THE KITCHEN IF YOU HAVE TO GO OR JUST DON'T GO!!!

• Pros: Don't even remember the food or drinks
• Cons: Abusive chef, angry atmosphere

01/29/07

Immature behavior and embarrassing for the guest

by snowboardsdeep at Citysearch

I expected a little more professionalism from a restaurant of this caliber in Palo Alto. Coming from the industry myself I understand that it is management?s job to handle confrontations between their servers and customers promptly and with tact. Whom ever the young women claiming to be the General Manger of this establishment was, clearly was not qualified to manage a restaurant or staff of that size. Immature behavior and embarrassing for the guest is how I would describe the situation and I wasn?t directly involved just a witness to an ugly scene. It?s unfortunate because my wife and I were visiting the area from Southern California and our friend who had attended Stanford mentioned it was one of the best places to eat in town. The food was ok, took forever, but the service or lack there of was pretty apparent. I would not recommend this to anyone

11/13/06

What happened to the service???

by sperans at Citysearch

Zibibbo used to be one of my favorite restaurants. But over the years the quality of both the food and service have gone down while prices have gone up. Recently we had a birthday party for a friend and the service was awful. We were seated on the patio which was really dark, and when we asked if we could get more light, the staff laughed awkwardly and wandered away. It took several requests before they turned up the lights. When they brought the food we were told we 'had' to eat 'family style' (with all plates in the middle) because that is the kind of restaurant they are - the servers actually argued with us when we asked to have specific plates put in front of specific people. It also took several requests to get them to clear away our empty appetizer plates in order to make room for our main courses. Also, a coupld of the dishes were so salty as to be almost inedible. Bring the old Zibibbo back!!!

• Pros: quality ingredients, interesting options
• Cons: poor service, terrible lighting on patio, very salty food