Restaurant Review

Location: Corner of Union Street/Ship Street, BRIGHTON

Restaurant: Italian Restaurant (opposite a lovely jewellers; Michael Rose)

Rating: Cleanliness: * Food: * Service: * Presentation: *
4 out of a possible 20!

As it was recently my birthday, my partner and I decided to spend a day out at our favourite place, Brighton. After a lovely morning walking around, we both got quite hungry and set out to find a nice restaurant to have lunch. As Italian food is my favourite, we picked what appeared to be a nice Italian pizza/pasta restaurant to eat in. We eat out a lot; it’s probably our favourite thing to do, at least twice a week. So we have a fair bit of experience on restaurant standards.

We went inside and asked to be seated outside along the lanes as it was a beautiful day. We walked out to the table and were handed our menus straight away. We were then approached to order our drinks. My partner ordered a low alcohol beer and myself lemonade. Whilst waiting for our drinks, we were approached by a further 2 waiters asking to take our drinks order! I soon realised there was no organisation in what tables belonged to what waiters. We ordered our food, whilst waiting for our drinks. The service was extremely rushed and felt like we were a burden on the staff. Although they had more than enough staff and the restaurant was only half full.


When we received our drinks, my partner was not given a low alcohol beer and when he asked the waiter, he replied “we don’t have any of them left”. It would have been polite to double check what he wanted to drink instead of assuming. My lemonade came in a glass with what can only be described as tomato pizza sauce, down the side of the glass and inside the top of the glass.

I wiped it down and tried to drink it but after battling with myself, pushed it to the side and waited for my partner to finish with his glass, so I could change it over.

I expected the table to be wiped over before we were served our lunch, it was not. I also hoped they would remove the cutlery from beside us that we were not using, as the fork sitting next to me quite visibly had a rather long hair wrapped between its prongs. Trying not to think of what my food was being cooked in, I hoped it would hurry up before I changed my mind and left. A different waiter brought over two plates, which had neither of what we ordered on it, so he took them away, after questioning if we were sure that wasn't what we had ordered! The lasagne I was waiting for definitely doesn’t look like the pizza they tried to give me!

We finally got our food. My partner ordered Bolognaise Tortellini, although it did not state on the menu what was inside the tortellini and we could not work it out through personal taste. The presentation was quite simple; on a clean plate (which is always nice!) my partner described his meal as ‘bland, undercooked grisly meat, the sauce tasteless. The little bit of veg that was actually on his plate was what added taste to the meal. In general the meal just tasted wet and soft’.

I had ordered the lasagne. It was presented in a dish, which it had obviously been cooked in. The outside of the dish and under the handles was black from where it had been warmed up – this could have easily been cleaned up. I was hoping the taste of the meal was going to make up for poor service and presentation. However when I took a bite of my lasagne I was not impressed. It tasted like pizza that had been reheated after it had been sitting out for a day. The cheese on the lasagne was so think and actually tasted like pizza cheese. The meat didn’t have any taste to it and the whole meal just tasted like it had been reheated more than once. I managed to eat a few mouthfuls and then pushed it to the side to be left with my empty, dirty lemonade glass.

Whilst waiting for our plates to be cleared, we asked for the bill. The meal came to around £15. Another waiter then whipped the serviettes out from under the two sets of un-used cutlery on our table and handed them to another customer. Leaving the cutlery with the hair on it lying on a dirty table. Ready for the next customers to sit down.

I have eaten in many restaurants and can honestly say this was the worst I have visited. Normally if a restaurant lacks in one department, it makes up for it in another, but this restaurant lacked in service, quality food, cleanliness and presentation. Intrigued, I came home to visit the webpage to see how they portray themselves but was unable to track any website down. This may be due to the name of the restaurant varying on search engines from Picasso's to Piccolo's!

Overall both my partner and I were very disappointed with the restaurant, so much so that I thought I would share this review with others. If you have visited the restaurant, feel free to add your opinion on the bottom.