The only person who would ever rate this restaurant favourably is someone who does not know what constitutes good food. I was, simply put, shocked by how bad this place was. On my visit I tried three starters and I shall be commenting on two of them. The first one was burrata which was gorgeous but let's face it, burrata always is and that has nothing to do with the restaurant as it does not require any amount of effort or skill on behalf of the chef to taste as good as it does. The cheese was planted in the middle of a plate and was surrounded by Vittoria tomatoes cut in half – and that was over £20. The tomatoes were nowhere near as good as the Sainsbury's Taste The Difference packet for £1.99. The second starter was a plate of thinly cut mortadella which was nice, but again, it was just plain meat on a plate surrounded by gherkins. I personally like mortadella but it is one of the cheapest meats and five slices of it for over £15 is plainly ridiculous. The third starter was a salad for which really, there are no words. My main course was cannelloni filled with something that can only be described as tasting like cat food. It was not simply unremarkable, it was actually bad. Really, really bad. I would not have enjoyed it had i eaten it in a cheap restaurant and I can honestly say that I have had way better culinary experiences in Carluccio's. Dessert was some sort of stodgy Victoria-type sponge covered in meringue (these two don't even go together – you will ask why I ordered it – because I didn't realise what was inside the meringue). The cake was completely dull, the meringue was OK but not better than the one it takes me 5 minutes to whip up at home.

But the worst thing about Cipriani – you would have thought I had covered it, but not quite – was the people…With the exception of a number of Mafia-related-looking-characters who were there on arrival (only someone like that can carry off a light blue three piece suit with flared trousers) and added comedy value…the… More