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| - My husband and I decided that we would go to Da Claudio for our anniversary meal after reading the reviews on Qype. Whilst we had some positive things to say about the food after our meal, we left the restaurant itself with a bitter taste in our mouths due to the service and general atmosphere.
We came into the restaurant at about 8:30 on a mid-week evening. There was one group of four, the rest of the dining room held about three other couples. In short it wasn't busy. We waited for a few minutes to be noticed, and then were shuffled into the bar area to see the menu and order. We weren't really bothered by this, it must just be policy to take the order at the bar and then seat the customers, but it was a little strange to walk all the way through the dining area to get to the bar, just to come back again.
Our starters were lovely my husband's prosciutto and melon salad was delicious, and my mozzarella and tomato 'lasagne' was excellent and the mains were not bad. My 'pork medallions' at £13 provided value for money in the sheer volume of the dish (I took half of it home!), and my husband quite liked his steak and pasta dish (he kept it for leftovers as well).
The real issue that we had with the restaurant began and ended with the staff. They seemed rushed, inattentive (mostly), and unfriendly (more on this later). Part of this feeling was created by the staff's rushing backwards and forwards and re-setting all the dishes on the empty tables instead of speaking to the customers. At one point, the waitress began sorting silverware at the side of the dining room, with no regard to the amount of noise that she was making! Surely this task could have been done in the kitchen? Where there weren't 14 paying customers trying to enjoy a quiet meal? Not to mention, this same waitress made a habit of stacking the plates, one on top of the other, and carrying them back to the kitchens as if they were stacks of books. Not quite the service that one would expect when paying more than £7 for a main.
At the end of the meal, we were asked if we wanted pudding. I ordered the chocolate torte, and my husband ordered the cheesecake. We had been told that there was one pudding that wasn't available, so we made our decisions and told the waiter who, on balance, was the best part of the service overall, in that he did ask us more than once if everything was okay. Anyway, after about five minutes, the waitress came back and told me that they were out of chocolate torte. I was disappointed, and didn't order anything else, and didn't really think anything of it until a woman on the other side of the dining room ordered the same thing and was told that they weren't going to cook it because it was too late. She said it was fine, but because she was a regular, Claudio himself came out to apologise to her that she couldn't get her pudding.
We aren't overly fussy when it comes to the kind of attention we desire from waitstaff. My husband and I just expect that we are treated with the same attention and courtesy as any other paying customer. As we left the restaurant, with Claudio and the waiters and the regulars all still in the dining room, we left without anyone taking the time to say 'Thank you', or 'Have a nice night', or anything else. It was a fitting way to leave a restaurant that made us feel less than welcome, and one that we won't be visiting again.
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