Neil Roake enjoys a high profile in Durban and his ventures have had considerable media focus. On arriving at Craft Trattoria, in Glenashley, I was reminded that I had been to this venue before under previous ownership and a different guise. Must confess I had heard lots of positive, and we had an excellent waiter. I was not as overawed by the decor and atmosphere, as I had been given to believe, however though it was busy if not full on a Friday night, noise levels were acceptable. The pizza was OK, although sliced in a rather strange fashion and it was all fine, but must confess it has perhaps been a bit overhyped. A pleasant addition to the area, but wouldn't rush back.
Service a bit out of sorts | By Liz | Monday, 29 August 2011
Friday night dinner for two, we enjoyed the ambience, and the menu is interesting. However, the service did irritate; no menus for 10 mins, our choice of wine was unavailable (we only found this out 10 mins after ordering) and were offered something similar at R80 extra, told our order for starters would be placed only in 10 minutes time because that would let the kitchen get less busy, thus we had to wait a total of 45 mins for the appetizers, choice of mains was sold out, on our second choice, the waiter tried to convince us not to have it because it was too small for a man (he tried to convince us twice of this..rather than just informing us of the size). The food was nice, not spectacular, and overall, I would say it was a pricey meal for what we had. Reasonable, but trading on it's current 'cool cat' status a bit to much and need to up their game.
We visited on Thursday 7th April with another couple and we all loved it. The waiter was great, friendly, efficient with a sense of humour and good knowledge of the dishes.
The four of us shared the starter platters which were excellent and very tasty!
The guys had the chicken (under a brick) and really enjoyed it. One lady had the seafood pasta and I had the rib dish (a bit rich) both delish, good size portions and very tasty. We opted to take our own wine corkage was R30 and our total bill was very reasonable - we will all be back!