My boyfriend and I have always wanted to go to Ciprianis, but never been. So last night after walking past again we decided impromptu to see if they had a table and try it for the first time. We will not be going back. Granted we were one of the first in the restaurant and were given a great table in the corner of the main part of the restaurant and when the restaurant did start filling up about 7.30, the atmosphere was great, but apart from that the whole experience was just plain awful.

The menu itself just lists the dishes with no description as to what the dishes actually are – who knows unless you are italian what Veneta chicken is??? I ordered the smoked ham and mozarella to start and my boyfriend the octopus capaccio with borlotti beans. My dish was I can quite honestly say one of the worst starter I have ever eaten in a restaurant. It was basically a small lump of mozarella with a packet of ham thrown on. A child could have done a better job!!! No seasoning, no dressing, no effort involved at all! The octopus carpaccio was no better, indeed it was pretty tastelss. The starters came up within 4 minutes of us ordering. We hadnt even finished drinking our champagne and the waiters were already asking to open our bottle of prosecco we had ordered. We had to actually ask the waiter could we have 15 minutes between the started and the main as we wanted to try and enjoy the meal – we were not in a drive through!!!

Main course was probably worse if possible. I had the chicken veneta, which was very questionable chicken pieces in tomatoe sauce – quite awful. My boyfriend had the oven roasted chicken, which he expected to be oven roasted and it just appeared to have been thrown in a pan with again some very questionable sauce – and for the record more berlotti beans!!! No greens with it or potatoes or anything. Was really awful.

Having cleared our plates, two waiters then came over pushing plates of desserts in our faces – panettoni panettoni madam??? Ummm no thanks –… More