Such a shame about this restaurant. The location is fantastic (right in the heart of Jesmond and so close to the metro and shops), but sadly the service (or lack of) and the uninterested staff, make this one place to miss.
Allow me to tell you about the last time we visited:
My friends and I have frequented this restaurant for the last 2 years roughly every wk to 2wks and in the last 6months, the service has really gone down hill. Sadly even the management don't seem to care about their customer service. On our last visit, the waiter neither acknowledged us or smiled whilst asking our table 'what do you want?' (to order), I was so shocked I actually went to see the waiter once he'd left our table and asked 'are we ok to be in here?', to which he replied 'yes', I then said, 'you seemed a little unhappy when you came to the table, so I wanted to check everything was alright', he said 'yes, everything is alright'....of course anyone in restaurant business knows that a customer coming over to you to check whether they are 'ok' to be here because your attitude was off, is a MASSIVE alert to your lack of customer service, however, this didn't seem to occur to the gentleman (who was disappointingly management!).
The tone of the waiters never changed after this conversation either, so no additional effort was made to rectify the shocking service skills throughout our meal.
To finish off what was an uncomfortable visit to Avanti, at the end of the meal, another waiter took our money and failed to return with the change (obviously tips are no longer optional!), after 10minutes (a long time for any customer to wait), we called over the waiter and reminded him. No apology was offered, and we are regular weekly customers, or were. We may only spend £20-£40 when we go in, but we were regular business, and this week, we went to a competitor restaurant instead, and were well received. I suggest you do the same, maybe if enough people stop putting up with the shocking service they'll get the message and start to value their customers. read more