George's reviews
Review of Osteria
14 Dec 07, 16:58
A contender for Kitchen Nightmares? 
This place should be amazing. It has an expensive reassuringly dark Alpine exterior, the sort of place that you'd expect to experience some hearty but very interesting italian food, great wines and lovely Italian atmosphere. The sort of solid food that you'd find high in the Alps. The menu certainly looks inviting - I was grabbed by the Wild Boar Ravioli. It's is varied and a world away from the standard italian that you'd find in any of the high street chains. But....
The service is truly terrible. There were four changes of Government by the time we we served. Is this just down to the freshness of the food? Great if it is but all we ordered was the ravioli and some bruschetta. They forgot our drinks. Despite reminding them twice. We had to ask for the bill three times. It's a shame. It took us over 2 hours to have a 'quick' one course lunch. Other diners didn't fare much better.
It's a shame because the food is actually very, very good. It's a quirky place to go - although quite cramped - if you want some off the beaten track italian food and are borded of the chain restaurants. The wine list is disappointing too.
The front of house is just a mess. If I wanted sullen disinterested staff, I'd spend my lunch time here at my office canteen.
It need sorting out. We won't return until it is.
Really annoying as people in the area want it to work.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.