K M.
Yelp
Gjelina caught our eye as the new restaurant in the Venetian with a more sustainable attitude towards their food. We spent 7 days in Vegas and ate out every meal. This was by far the worst experience of all the meals.
The front of their menu states "A 20% MANDATORY service charge will be added to your check. Our belief is every hourly Gjelina employee contributes to your experience and 100% of MSC will be distributed amongst them." Wasn't happy about the forced gratuity but expected to get excellent service. That also tells me they aren't paying their staff enough for the prices they are charging.
Dishes:
#1 Roasted Root Vegetables, Mole. This was good, but just carrots in mole sauce. We enjoyed it and the mole was more like a delicious curry.
#2 Roasted Oyster Mushrooms, Tarragon, Butter, Lemon. We loved the idea that the mushrooms were grilled to get a smokey flavor, but this dish was awful. The mushrooms were burned on the outside (not roasted). The grill was too hot, and the mushrooms tasted like charcoal. Not much taste of butter or Tarragon. See photo of how burned it was.
#3 Barley & Roasted Vegetable Soup. This was very salty and when we asked the waiter if they could make it any less salty, the response was "no, you can choose something else." He then picked up the soup and took it away without even asking. We didn't even get a chance to say if we wanted to eat it. 5 minutes later came back, dropped a menu off and asked us to choose something else. At least they didn't charge us for the soup that they just took away.
#4 Half Roasted Chicken, Winter Green, Pan Sauce. The chicken was amazing. Some of the most tender chicken we have ever eaten. They were somehow able to turn a usually dry and bland chicken breast into a magically juicy and flavorful piece with nice crispy skin. We thoroughly enjoyed the chicken portion. The winter greens, however, tasted like a cow had chewed them and spit them back up on the plate. We couldn't eat more than a bite. The Pan Sauce was good, but more like a soup on the dish.
#5 Orecchiette, Beef Cheek Bolognese, Whipped Ricotta. This dish was the highlight of our meal. We were all marveling at the deep tomato and beef flavor they managed to create while also having a nice creamy ricotta dollop on top to balance out the dish.
After we finished, our server came over and asked us why we didn't eat the wintergreens, in which we responded that they just didn't taste good. He sent the manager over and asked us about our entire meal. We provided candid feedback about what we liked and didn't like. It's the only way a new restaurant can fix things.
#6 Sticky Toffee Pudding with Gellato on top. After providing feedback, the manager offered to comp our dessert. When it arrived the first bite of the edge was a bit warm with the cold of Gellato. After the first bite, we thought it was the gelato making things cold, but the pudding was hard and cold on the inside. Difficult to use a spoon to take a bite. These were obviously made ahead of time, stored in a fridge and not properly re-heated. It was comparable to a cold dense hockey puck. You know a dish is bad when it's comped and you can't eat more than a bite.
After abandoning the dessert, we just wanted to pay the bill and get out of there.
Now on to the "excellent" service and wait staff...
They provide very small water glasses. Anyone that goes to Vegas on a regular basis knows you need to drink a lot of water. They were challenged to keep our water glasses full. At one point I held up my empty water glass for almost 5 minutes. Our waiter walked by, noticed this and headed straight into the kitchen. Shortly after they busboy came out and refilled our waters. I asked if they had any larger glasses and was told no. They did bring out larger glasses later.
One of the staff clearing the table behind us stacked dishes too high. The dirty silverware fell off, hit my wife's shirt and fell to the ground. Accidents happen, but this just shows the skill level of the staff there. They weren't quite sure what to do and tried to apologize. Nothing from anyone after that.
The waiter Matt started out good, describing the dishes, but went downhill fast. Especially after asking about the saltiness of the soup. We rarely saw him after that.
They started good about clearing plates, silverware, etc. Almost too fast. When my son said he wasn't quite done with his food, they left it. He finished eating the food on the plate, but nobody came around again to clear the plate. Even after he put silverware on the plate and set it to the side of the table. Nobody cleared it until they brought our dessert. Normally wouldn't be an issue, but when you go from the staff waiting to take plates as soon as you eat your last bite, to leaving a dirty plate...you notice.
At this point, my feeling is this overall restaurant is mis-managed and improperly staffed.