Ask Italian - Basingstoke and Deane

Came here for the first time ever with my boyfriend for our anniversary dinner and was so excited to try the carbonara as it looked so good on the picture on the online menu. When it came out it looked nothing like the picture, it was genuinely just boiled pasta with olive oil and cheese. It tasted watery, bland and oily with absolutely NO ham at all!! I told one of the waiters that I had ordered a carbonara and was presented with what seemed to be plain linguine to which he responded ‘just needs a bit more sauce’. They brought out my dish again and this time it had ham on it although it still looked nothing like advertised. I gave it the benefit of the doubt and gave it a taste and it tasted the exact same. Bland, oily boiled pasta. I genuinely lost my appetite after 3 bites and felt scammed that this dish was £14 so I tried to call over a waiter and this is when the TERRIBLE customer service kicked in. I understand that the restaurant was busy but I was sat there for about 20 minutes with my hand up and said excuse me to every waiter that walked by just to get ignored. It was honestly humiliating. I finally got the attention of a waiter who didn’t come over and instead told me to wait and he’d be over in a minute but after 10 minutes of waiting he still didn’t come over and in the mean time we were STILL trying to speak to a waiter. Meanwhile I heard a man behind us, complaining about cold pasta and I went to ask him if he had complained, and he said that he did and they managed to take it off the bill. Finally a waiter came and I told him about the disgrace of a carbonara that was served to me and I asked for it to be taken off the bill to which he apologised and agreed to do. Then we just sat around waiting 30 minutes for anyone to come back and give us the bill. I was so upset and frustrated I was trying to hold back tears as I was REALLY looking forward to eating here for our date (I was so hungry too lol). Then it got even worse… the waiter had just gone to get us a bill to which another waiter came up to us and asked us if we wanted the bill. I told her it was already getting taken care of but then she came back with the bill full price without taking off the price of the carbonara. I told her we were meant to have the carbonara taken off the bill to which she crumpled the receipt in my boyfriend’s face, scoffed and walked off. We then had about 4 waiters crowded around us over this issue which was really overwhelming and embarrassing. The waiter came back with a new ‘upgraded’ bill to which she said the manager had given us a ‘manager discount’ of £7 off, I was appalled as we had been told that the carbonara would be completely taken off the bill as I didn’t even eat it and not some measly £7 discount. After arguing with her, she told me that I had to speak to the manager if I wanted it changed so I demanded to speak to the manager but never got to, it’s whatever because the waiter finally came back with the THIRD bill which took off the carbonara. All that hassle just to leave with an empty stomach. It was honestly the worst restaurant experience of my life, I cried as soon as I got home because it was so frustrating and humiliating. This is my first time writing a review on anything but the food the customer service was so bad that I felt compelled to write this review. Do yourself a favour and never visit this restaurant. It needs a lot of work. I also have pictures of my bland pasta and all the receipts. I understand that maybe they are a troubled restaurant and low on staff but the bland food is definitely not worth the extortionate price. The customer service was terrible as well and usually I’m quite compassionate towards waiters as I know it’s a rough job, but they didn’t even come to check on us once. We practically had to beg to be heard out. As a restaurant please do better, I sincerely don’t want anyone else having this bad of an experience.

I just wanted to thank the staff for thier compassion and patience tonight. They not only catered for a family of 8 and sang Happy Birthday to 2 of us but most importantly, really helped with my nephew who has special needs. He was very overwhelmed and the staff did all they could to help. The food was delicious and timely and we are really grateful.

Took ages to get seated from front of house staff. Ordered peroni which came and was warm. Dinner was bland and service was poor. Wasn’t offered black pepper or Parmesan. All in all poor restaurant.

Bland unexciting food. Arancini starter was disappointing as it came with a cold sauce. I had spaghetti bolognese, which was more spaghetti than sauce. My partner had fettuccine bolognese, which was swimming in water. Obviously, the pasta hadn't been drained properly. The waitress kept apologising for the wait , but that wasn't an issue as we were in and out within the hour. I don't think we'll be visiting again.

Food was very good but unfortunately the experience was ruined by the very poor customer service. Staff were not interested in customers, preferring to stand up in the bar area and talk amongst themselves. The restaurant was not busy yet we had to wait almost 30 minutes for our drinks. Clearing the tables after we finished eating was a similarly drawn out experience. All in all a very below average experience which I won’t be in a hurry to repeat.