We live in KL and enjoy fine dining restaurants regularly. I was thrilled to hear of the opening of a new, upscale bar/restaurant high in the sky and w/outdoor seating; normal in Bangkok, not so much in KL with the exception of the Skybar/View/Luna. A girlfriend and I decided to check Marini's out for drinks/dinner (before I subject my husband to a new restaurant--although this one has smoking indoors/outdoors, so he'd be quite content). We went on a Monday night at about 5pm w/no advance reservations; the restaurant was already booked up, but we were quite happy to have drinks at the bar and then have dinner in the outside seating area.Marini's has it's own elevator to ascend to the restaurant; there are many fab elevator experiences (think Felix's Hong Kong....) and the waiting area to enter the elevator is pretty tacky. Elevator could be decorated to make more of a fabulous "entrance" effect. No biggie.As other reviewers have said, the view of the twin towers is spectacular. The indoor bar area very sleek, modern, impressive and empty at 5pm--completely full by 6:30pm. Very good seat planning so that all have fantastic views but not packed in like sardines. We did not pay much attention to what the prices were for happy hour, but apparently we were there during this time period...so we had two drinks. I ordered a dry gin martini and although TEENY, it was excellent (I hate it when expensive bars use the smallest martini glasses possible--I don't mind paying the price, but at least give me more than two sips....). My friend ordered a lychee martini. Mistake. Way too sweet and the glass was mostly filled by two lychees. We both had gin martinis for the second round (and, two martinis made up one decent-sized martini). We ordered a couple of nibbles from the bar menu. One grilled mushroom (and I mean ONE grilled mushroom) served on some greens, and one fried chicken, which was actually quite good (fry anything and it tends to taste good...not sure what part of the chicken used either--we were debating about this...). Expensive but then again, one is paying for the view more than for the quantity/quality of the food.I need to add that my friend (who is Malaysian and dines out regularly in KL's nicest restaurants) early on told me that she'd want to write about the staff...and how poor/confused the service was. It took five times to get our drink orders straight (poor English/bad training?) and once the order was placed, a couple more waiters came by to take our order. We took our time ordering the bar food as we were chatting and every time we put our menus down, a different waiter/waitress came by to take the menu away...JUST LEAVE IT....sigh.We moved to the outside area to have dinner. The staff for this area was much more professional and efficient. At one point, I wanted to ask a question and saw a waiter inside (in the indoor restaurant area) and waved to him and he glared at us and turned the other way...obviously the indoor waiting staff does not lower themselves to step outside to wait on the plebes who do not make advance reservations. We ordered a lovely NZ pinot noir (very nice and a generous serving portion) and as we were not very hungry, we ordered one pizza, which was very good, but nothing special that we could not have ordered at one of the ground floor KLCC restaurants, for half the price (once again, you are paying for the view, so fair enough...). My friend did enjoy the bar food fried chicken so much that we ordered a second round, and another round of pinot noir. Sunset was fantastic but as the outdoors started filling up, so did the number of tourists posing for photos all over the outdoor area...really annoying to try to have a conversation with people coming back and forth around you, posing and using camera flashes...(our very good waiter told us that it really starts getting crazy from 1-3am....well warned. Plus, the music played in the background while we were there were songs from our youth--60/70/80's music--nice. House music/DJ starts around midnight, so again, we were well warned). All in all, I'd come back again to sit at the bar or outside for drinks/nibbles at sunset time, and then go elsewhere for dining. The indoor restaurant ambience looked like nothing special and I'd far rather go to Thirty8 at the Grand Hyatt for better food/wine and cocktail quantity and a nearly equally nice view (and no tourists with flashing cameras, and quiet), along with a spectacularly trained staff. Marini's for drinks/nibbles/sunset and that's it. (Too old and jaded to care about being seen with the "beautiful" and "in" social scene...)
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