"Myself and a group of friends came here on a Friday night to celebrate a birthday. The birthday girl loves the Covent Garden branch of this chain, but we were so let down by the food and service at the Camden restaurant. Service from the two staff members on the floor was polite but slow at first, we had to call them over to take a drinks order after waiting for quite some time. Bear in mind there were only about 5 other tables in the restaurant this evening so it certainly wasn’t busy. A member of the party ordered a bottle of wine, and after clarifying twice with the waiter that he would like a bottle, they still bought a glass of red and no bottle. The real disappointment came from the food though. All five of us ordered pasta dishes, 3 carbonara and 2 ragu. The food came in about 20 minutes, and the carbonara’s were all lukewarm to cold. The bowls weren’t warm either so I couldn’t imagine they were sat under a hot plate while the other dishes were prepared. We got the attention of one of the waiters and told him the carbonara’s were cold and could they please be heated up. He took 2 away, 1 member of the party kept their cold carbonara as they were hungry. The next moment, a man who I assume was the manager (black hair, black t shirt and glasses) came storming over to the table holding our carbonara, practically shouting at us that the dishes were made at the same time so how could some be cold and others not? (The x2 ragu’s had steam coming off them so clearly they were prepared last). He then aggressively asked us what the problem was, we told him again the problem was that they were cold. He then shouted what do you want me to do about it???? We were all gobsmacked that a ‘manager’ would speak to paying customers that way. We asked him to make the meals hot and he stormed off. Another staff member returned a few minutes later with our pasta, the pasta was warmer but certainly not hot, although the sauce was hot this time. When one of the carbonara’s arrived for the second time we counted 11 pieces of pasta, £16.95 for 11 pieces of pasta is actually laughable! When we finished, we weren’t asked if everything was okay and we received no apology from anyone. The bill arrived in full and we asked to remove the 12.5% service charge solely because of the way the ‘manager’ handled the situation earlier. The staff member seemed like she didn’t understand what we meant when we asked her to remove the service. As we were getting up to leave, the table next to us told us that their dishes were the worst pizza, pasta and risotto that they’d ever had. They were clearly unhappy too as they had called over a member of staff to complain as we were leaving! The cold food was one issue, but the way the ‘manager’ spoke to us really ruined this birthday meal and we left really disappointed. None of us had ever been spoken to in such an aggressive manner by a staff member, and when you’re paying £16.95 for a small portion of (cold) pasta I’d expect better!"
Affogato Al Caffe
