Zero Sette

What this Italian restaurant needs is some Italians working in it. I'm afraid the minimum wage Eastern Europeans serving the food here just don't have a clue. Surly and sour is the order of the day.
This place also has no drinks menu, so you have to guess what they have while your waitress stares at you like you're an idiot. I asked for a Peroni (safe choice in an Italian) expecting a bottle, but was presented with a full pint. No mention of the fact it was on draught when I ordered it.
The food. My spaghetti vongole was half as good and twice the price of my local establishment and my companion's duck was overpowered (a tough job with duck) by the enormous amount of rosemary and salt in its sauce.
I work at Excel regularly but certainly wont be eating here again. I can get bad food and rubbish staff at the Fox pubs for a quarter of the price.

Zero is the perfect name for this restaurant. Because that is the rating I give it. We were ‘greeted’ by a grumpy old waitress in a dirty T-shirt and told they didn't open for another 10 minutes. And because there were no tables available outside to sit and have a drink we'd just have to wait in the ‘bar area’ – minus drinks. We had a child with us and specifically said six plus a child seat, only to be shown to a table for six minus child seat (we don't do them) – or extra chair to replace it.

Same waitress came and took our order – food order – no drinks yet – minus charm but plus chewing gum. There's nothing more appealing than placing your food order with a smacking gum accompaniment. Still no drinks order taken – we had to ask. Twice. My fellow diner had requested a lager top and was presented with a ‘Stell-urr’ – when she asked if it was a top she got an indignant ‘yuuuh’.

Food arrived – another zero. I think the only person ‘happy’ was the child we'd requested a seat for – but he's 2 and a half and would eat anything. Given his was a ‘starter portion’ it still only had only 2 bite size bits of chicken in the pasta sauce – I'm guessing a main would've gotten 4? The tagliatelle salmon was very much erring towards a starter portion with what looked like tinned salmon. A lasagne arrived cremated. Another tagliatelle arrived soaked in oil with an apology of ‘bolognese sause’. The panchetta on a pizza looked like shredded raw bacon and was inedible. The side order of chips looked like a poor-man's McDonalds minus the supersize. The only meal that seemed OK was a pizza maragarita. And it's almost impossible to ruin one of those. Oh – and there was a bug in the salad.

We'd already decided not to pay service (what for?!) but then, when the bill was brought to the table the waiter (different yet similarly unenthusiastic), literally, to the point of personal space invasion, stood over me with chip and pin machine at the ready. I guess when the ‘are you finished with the salad’ 'yes, given there's a bug in it' was met with no response whatsoever, we shouldn't have expected – well, err – anything.

The only reason we ate is because we'd been up since 4am – one of us had just done the London triathlon – we were knackered and starving. I did hear one of the waiters shout at another table ‘well, one of you ordered this meal’ like they'd made a mistake. Because clearly the reverse couldn't be true. I think, given the location, this establishment works on the premise that no one will ever come back again, so they treat their punters accordingly.

The place looked OK from the outside – but then you know what they say about books and covers.

Oh – and the toilet doors don't shut properly (as I found to my embarrassment) – so even when you're going for a number 1 or 2… they still give zero.