Carluccio's - London

A Selling point of this branch in Spiatlfields is the non central location still attracts locals and the business district but less so tourists and hence less chance of unbooked tables This place should have scored close to top marks where it not for the price per portion is exorbitant repeatedly returned cold food ancora e ancora no ambience of italian cooking in the dishes A themed restaurant serving unturned food...safari!

3 of us went for tea. We waited at the bar to be shown to a table, and very eventually one of the staff realised we were there. Thre was only one table occupied, so we wee shown to the one next to them. Mm. So ... We sat somewhere else. Eventually a waitress came to take our order. We also said we wanted a cake, so told to choose. Very difficult to choose when there is no one to take your order. I had fresh mint tea. I have never had one with only 1 scraggy bit of mint. A quite appaling experience and we definitely will not be returning. Quite disgraceful.

The food was delicious. The sirlon steak was amazing!!! The service was friendly. I had a very nice time!!!

This had always been a good branch of the chain but our last couple of visits had disappointed and I think we’ve visited for the last time. Friendly staff can’t offset poor food and whilst the lasagna is always a reliable choice the pork sausage pasta was bland, with lukewarm stuck together pasta. The passion fruit meringue dessert was inedible and whilst it was taken off the bill our memento of the evening is a receipt that says “cream off” next to the refunded dessert.

Having had a very poor experience a few months ago with a breakfast meeting, I thought I owed it one more chance. A mistake. We should have taken note that there were very few people in the restaurant (this place used to be really busy, even early morning). So breakfast with a colleague this morning in the restaurant was simply dreadful. It began with a waitress who seemed unable to understand the request for two 4 minute, soft boiled eggs. Granted that they were not on the menu but poached eggs were. The waitress said she would check and returned to say that they could only do seven minutes? At that point we gave up on the boiled eggs and my colleague chose the same as me. Poached eggs with avocado on toast. The dishes arrived. The poached eggs had clearly not been drained properly as the bread was sodden and tasted of vinegar water. The waitress was asked by my colleague for some other toasted bread with butter. An untoasted slice of bread with no butter duly followed! The waitresses spent the entire time we were there chatting to themselves by one of the tills. Three requests for the bill finally resulted in it arriving. This chain is in serious risk of heading in the same direction as one of its notable competitors. It used to be dependable with informed and engaging personnel but appears to have been in steep decline for some time.