Pescatori

Ate here on 27/11/10 anniversary dinner with my wife. We were met at the door, quickly and in a friendly yet professional manner.

Coats taken and stored safely, requested G & T's served promptly. I ordered Scallops and Lobster starter, very good. My wife's starter was Wild Mushroom and Foie Gras Pithiver. It was very short of mushrooms and even shorter of Foie Gras. Two glasses of Merlot were very good.
Main courses arrived, mine was Tagliatelle with Wild Mushrooms, again I noticed plenty of cheap button mushrooms and the faint scattering of Wild Mushrooms. Portion size was adequate. My wife's main was Spaghetti with Lobster and Tomatoes. Again she/we felt somewhat cheated by the amount of Lobster hiding amongst the spaghetti, at £21.00 we expected more. That said it was claimed to be delicious, both dishes were tasty, though short on content.

I'm a man who loves my desserts, especially Italian desserts. The dessert menu was dissappointing. Bread and Butter Pudding, Apple Pie and Custard? Please! how about a decadent Tiramisu? a Panna Cotta? Italian Cheesecake? need I go on? Come on Chef, a little imagination please!

Suffice to say I did not have dessert and the moment for coffee was lost.

At £85 including service it was a shade on the expensive side and barely reasonable value for money.

Booked at 7:00pm on 28th August 2010. Were not told would be in the basement next to the toilets. Arrived on time. Had to wait for table and it seemed whole basement to be prepared for us. Were not offered anything during 10 minute wait. Taken down scruffy stairs to musty smelling basement. Complained. Take it or leave it attitude – just an unwanted glass of champagne to mollify us. Food ordinary chain fare. Lobster lingine bog standard for £21, cold bread basket for £3, all plus 12.5% for service! Forgot to take our drinks order. All overpriced. Never again.

This is without doubt the worst restaurant experience I have ever had. The food is overpriced rubbish, and the service is even worse. It was about ten minutes before a waiter even appeared at our table. We started by ordering a bottle of wine only to be told that the wine we wanted was not available, so we ordered another (more expensive) bottle. We then both ordered potted shrimps to start and our main courses.

The waiter apeared with our wine, and told us there was only one potted shrimps left. My friend ordered something else.

When the starter arrived it was vile. The ‘potted shrimp’ was a few tiny shrimps it burnt melted liquid butter with two tiny crutons on the side. I asked for some bread but the waiter told me they ‘had run out’. When we asked how a restaurant could run out of bread, we were told it was because they were ‘very busy’. No apologies just a totally contemptuous attitude.

When the waiter returned we complained about the awfulness of the food , especially how the potted shrimp was virtually inedible. Again no apologies just a comment about this is how it is done here, and that the problem was with me and not the food. At this point we decided to cut our losses. We told the restaurant we would pay for what we had eaten but were we cancelling the main courses.

When the bill came they had charged us for everything. We questioned this and were told that as we had ordered the food, we had to pay for it. We challenged this and said that no way were we going to pay for food we hadn't eaten. We left the restaurant only to be followed by two waiters and their manager (the first time in the whole evening that they were being attentive to us as customers), screaming at us that we owed them money, and that unless we came with them they would call the police.

We told them in no uncertain terms that we would not be returning to the restaurant, and if they wanted to call the police they could. We would happily wait until the police arrived. For some reason, although they kept threatening us, and kept holding their phones and pointing to them, they never made the phone call to the police. I wonder why! Eventually their manger told them to leave it and get back to the restaurant (we were three streets away at this point). They finally screamed at us that we would never be welcome at their restaurant again (like that was ever going to happen).

So if you want expensive (average starter price over £10, main course over £20) inedible badly prepared and served food, slow and contemptuous service, and to be harrassed and threatened for not paying for food that you had not received, then please go to this restaurant. Otherwise I'd recommend you'd get a higher gastronomic experience from your local hot dog stand.

3 of us went to Pescatori for the first time to take advantage of the 30% off offer. As we were not very hungry that night, we ordered a lobster linguine to share as the starter. Given that it is supposed to be their speciality, I didn't find the dish extra-ordinary. The portion was generous which I expected it to be at that price tag. I more enjoyed my main. I had the black cod with sweet chard and Gazpacho. Fish was perfectly cooked. I was a little worried about how the cold Gazpacho would go with a pipping hot piece of fish, but it turned out quite ok at the end as the Gazpacho was not as cold as I thought but at room temperature. The slight acidity of the Gazpacho complemented the oilly black cod very well and yes, the fish was pipping hot. We were all stuffed after the main course but my friends insisted to try at least 1 dessert. We've picked the Vannila Pannacota with balsamic berries. I could only manage 1 spoonful. It was ok, but would prefer the pannacota to be a littie sweeter especially against that tangy berries and balsamic. Other than the food, the service was attentive. The place were filled up but the good thing was that it was not too noisy, a great place to catch up with friends. I would definitely go back again to try out the other dishes.

Great seafood at a reasonable price. Comes highly recommended!