Nolita — Restaurant in Claremont

We went to Nolita tonight for dinner with friends who we hadn't seen since lockdown. I was very excited to be dining out and to get dressed up. Unfortunately the night that I had imagined didn't turn out very well. Firstly the waitress serving us was new and forgot our water and a few items from out order. We had to put our hands up to get attention to order wine. I understood that she was new and made allowances. It got worse from there. I ordered a steak medium rare. I had to be persistent when ordering as the waitress kept repeating 'medium' but finally we got through that we wanted two steak dinners both medium rare. The steaks arrived and they were medium actually at the ends of each they were medium well. We asked the waitress to return them which is something we never do. We saw the chef protesting to two waitresses then the owner was called. Some 5 or more minutes later the owner returned to the table with what I thought was my newly cooked steak. He had however returned with our original steaks which were now cold to tell us that they were in fact medium rare and I was mistaken. He said what I really was describing was a rare steak. I explained that we had been to many restaurants and never ever had to return a steak that was over cooked. He again said I was mistaken and if I didn't like the steak he would take it off the bill. I said that I wasn't going to argue with him but the steak wasn't medium rare. I didn't eat the steak as it was over cooked and the meat was tough. I googled a picture of different cooked steak to show him when we left. He wasn't impressed but did take the steak off the bill. Needless to say we will never go back to this restaurant. I couldn't believe that he would argue with a customer but also as a restaurateur that he didn't know what a medium rare steak looked like. I felt the chef in fact was in charge and refused to re cook a steak to my liking. I am not a difficult customer and the whole experience left me feeling embarrassed and it spoilt the evening. As I said we won't be...

Rarely do I write in about a restaurant unless it’s fabulous. In this case it was not. As a regular we have been going there for many years. I saw no sign of the old restaurant staff. Unfortunately on this occasion the food was misrepresented and not up to par. For entree, I specifically asked a new waitress how many prawns were served , she said about 5 quite big ones. We ordered that and only 3 very charred, dry unpleasant tasting ones arrived. When the waitress came to clear , I pointed this out to her and she apologised ... Ok , so on to the mains. 2 slightly over cooked steaks. Lovely appearance on the outside and the accompanying jus sauce was great but the actual steak was tough, chewy and very salty. Again the waitress asked how everything was. Again I had to tell her the truth. She asked if there was anything she could do to make up for this..I said yes ..at least take the awful prawns off the bill. She said she would speak to the manager. Hmmm, I should add that during the dinner the next table was extremely unhappy with their fish dish and had an altercation with this manager which didn’t end nicely and ruined the atmosphere, so I wasn’t surprised when we paid the bill that he had not taken anything off our bill. I reasoned with him that we were really unhappy with our meal and he eventually he agreed to do so. A couple sitting at the bar having drinks thought the whole evening had been hilarious…watching one after another customer complaining. I think the manager was definitely getting complaints about the food and was very frustrated , but ultimately the problem lies with the kitchen and he was having to cope with it.. Unlike other reviews that I have just read, he was not rude to us. I guess the rule is..give the customer what they want, the standard they are used to getting and if your going to charge big $ then try and appease them when you don’t deliver on...

Unfortunately I had a very bad experience at Nolita due to the service. Firstly I would like to point out that the food was great, however everything else was beyond disappointing. My friends and I are in our mid twenties and were the youngest at the restaurant, we felt ignored and dismissed by the staff due to our age. The restaurant was not overly busy at 5:45pm on that Saturday night when we had our booking, yet we were left waiting to be served for a significant time and tried multiple times to get someone's attention but were ignored. Not only this, my wine was removed without asking and before I had finished. When we got up to pay we were told to sit back down and were then ignored for another 5 minutes before I had to ask the owner to bring the bill again. When we left I spoke to the owner explain how disappointed we were with the service and how we felt we were treated. It wasn't until the following day when I checked my bank account that I noticed that the owner had charged me $535.00 instead of $53.00. I made contact with the owner who said he would refund the extra money I was charge. 7 days later I still had not received the money back into my account. I made contact with the owner again to inform him I did not receive the money back, it transpired he sent the money to the wrong account number - another 'mistake' meaning I was out over $500 for more than a week. I asked for a refund for the poor service and inconveniences, as direct debits had been cancelled due to the lack of funds. He ignored my request, failed to take ownership for these two massive 'mistakes' and did say much of an apology for the whole situation. I have told so many people about this experience and they are all disgusting with the way we and I were treated. The lack of empathy from Nolita towards the situation is extremely disappointed and I will not...