Rossopomodoro

Went there for dinner with some friends and it was a nightmare.

Got there at a reasonable time, 21:15. It took us 15 minutes to get a menu after being seated. We then ordered wine, and that was plonked on the table by a very rude waiter who didn't believe it was his duty to serve us. When we ordered we had to point at the menu for the waiter to understand our selection. One would expect such an establishment to have waiter who knows the menu.

After all that hassle, they still got my order wrong, gave me pizza instead of a calzone, although i had clearly pointed to the right item on the menu!

And when the menu came, it appeared that my friend who had ordered a mozzarella di buffola priced at 11 pounds (already quite pricey) , was actually served a special priced at an even more incredible 15.50 pounds.

Now as regular customers, we though it would be reasonable to have a word with the manager.

We were told that we were wrong, the pizza instead of calzone issue was my fault as I had made the mistake, and regarding the mozzarella we were told it was eaten so tough luck. We also believed the service to be poor so asked for the 18 pound service charge to be removed.

We were insulted and told we were cheap. Safe to say we won't be going there again.

So be warned, if you want an expensive dinner, bad service and an insult with your coffee this is the place to go.

The food was pretty good – food not the issue, ambience was quite good, too. To be clear, myself and brothers/cousin, we'd been out for a couple of ales, but were more than presentable; by and large we get politer after ales… didn't want to put them out, quick pizza before bed etc

All was pretty good during the meal, but here was the issue: we arrived, we ordered, maitre d' was so enthusiastic almost anyone would have hired him as a manager in their business irrespective. Problem was, we thought we had ordered a bottle of red (no we did not specify house, but it was one of those “we've just ordered some £10 per head pizza can we have a bottle of red” type situations…).

Come the end of the meal and the bill it turns out we “have ordered” the most expensive bottle in the establishment… at £52 per bottle! Twice…! The maître d’ believes he offered us 3 wines, the first couple under £20, and that we chose the third, at £52 per bottle. Thing is, I categorically know that cannot be correct, because I know for certain that there is no way I or any of my three friends would have knowingly ordered a £52 bottle of wine, let alone ordered a second. On the basis that we cannot have explicitly agreed to that selection knowing its price, I've worked on the assumption that if you are in pizza restaurant eating £10 pizza and you ask for a bottle of red, the waiter has a duty to read that as ‘a simple bottle of red from somewhere near the least pricey end of the wine list‘, rather than ‘the most expensive bottle of red on the menu’. We did however agree to what he suggested (without knowing the price).

His solution was to give us an extra bottle of the same wine he had just sold us two bottles of at presumably the same fantastical markup as all restaurants do… I did not feel that was the right outcome, but I agreed because it was very late, I was very tired, and I don't much like complaining and confrontation, especially at the end of a meal.

There is maybe no certainty on right and wrong here, maybe I should have been eagle-eyed on spotting that the ‘bottle of red’ with a pizza was the most expensive bottle of red he had ever sold. Maybe he did tell us the price of each of the bottles of wine and somehow each of us failed to hear it. But I know that I believe in my gut that the price of the wine was never mentioned, and I can’t convince myself otherwise, even in the interests of seeing both sides of the matter… which means, in the end, I still have a nagging feeling that we were not properly dealt with, and that isn’t going to make me run back there in a hurry…

Lots of interesting and authentic pizzas (including many pizza bianca- i.e. without tomato sauce- options) with well-sourced ingredients (some bearing the Slow Food emblem), cooked to perfection. Puddings all made in-house and on the spot rather than bought-in; the calde calde (freshly made doughnuts in icing sugar, with a little Nutella on the side) are heaven on earth and in themselves worth the visit. For me, this Rossopomodoro is, currently, the best pizza place in London.

We actually visited the Monmouth Street branch of this Italian chain. The decor is incredibly modern and red…very red. Indeed, you may be forgiven for thinking you had stepped into a Ferrari showroom. The food is not particularly different from other UK chains and possibly a touch more expensive but the pizzas were fresh and tasty and well cooked. A warm salad of roasted vegetables was also nicely presented but possibly a little overpriced at just under a tenner. Rosso source all their ingredients from the region round Naples, a feature they could make much more of in order to set them apart from the competition.