Little Italy Restaurant, Nungambakkam Chennai — Restaurant in Tamil Nadu

Less quantity, hair in food, slightly misleading statements from servers.

Quantity was very less. I know this is a posh restaurant and all dishes are expensive, but I didn't know that the amount served wouldn't be sufficient for a single person. We (two) wanted to try different dishes, so we ordered one of the pastas with the intention of ordering something else later. I was about to order another dish too, but my wife suggested waiting till the first one arrives. That was good for us because I was disappointed with the quantity they gave. I know they want to make money and that's why I thought the dishes were expensive, but I didn't know this 4d chess move of providing so little quantity that the customers are forced to buy more. Don't come here with the intention of satisfying your hunger.

We had almost decided we'd not order a second one and never try this place again, when at the end of our plate, my wife found a small hair in her serving. The restaurant was, in general, clean and lovely-looking, but this made us wonder whether the cooks / servers were even wearing hairnets properly. If these "high-class, 4/5-star" restaurants are like this, I don't think it's fair to expect normal hotels and restaurants to be clean.

The service was good; they're charging 5%, after all. I would've given the service 5 stars if it were not for the slightly misleading recommendation by the server. We both don't know much about Italian dishes (apart from the names pasta and pizza) and we ordered a specific pasta (because I saw the words cheese and mushroom in it). I'd asked the waiter to share some more info on that dish. He explained it well and also mentioned another pasta which, according to him, had a lot of vegetables. We both love eating vegetables, so we went ahead with that. After the pasta was served, and I got over my disappointment with the quantity, we realized that there were barely any vegetables at all: 5-6 pieces of broccoli, 3-4 very small pieces of some others - that's it. I was expecting more than that. Well, to be fair to them, when the quantity is so less, in must have been hard for them to decide whether to use 3 or 4 pieces.

Poor restaurant owners! How'll they profit if they start serving more! I guess I shouldn't be too hard on them. They're humans. They're already providing a valuable service to the society by serving few grams of food for a meagre price of 600-750.

Let them continue. I don't care if they somehow make Google delete this review. Pausing my sarcasm, I can wholeheartedly say that even though this was a dissatisfying experience, I've decided never to visit another posh restaurant again. I do want quality (which was questionable here because of the hair) and ambience, but I actually want to feel full as well. I'll stick with home food (no need to worry about quantity) and local, smaller restaurants (most of which have...

The concept of a vegetarian Italian restaurant was very exciting for me and with the good reviews, went for it.

Ambience- good, dim-lit, wonderful decor and quite huge. If the arrangement would've been in such a way as to reduce the diner density, I'd have really appreciated it far more and the got accustomed to the price point as well!

On the price, it is on the expensive side, no doubts about it. Does it deliver? Well, probably missing a hit or two at places. The food at times and the service at others.

Started with zuppa di cipolle which was described to have been seasoned with parmesan cheese and crunchy croutons. The croutons were all soggy when the soup reached us. Either the soup was too thin to hold the crunchiness even for a short while or maybe they should've brought the croutons seperately. The cheese element in the soup was slightly less and a nudge was all it took for them to bring a small tub of grated parmesan cheese. The cheese- not top of the class, but neither bad. An upgrade here would be well counted!

Went for caprese salad next, had high expectations for the mozzarella di bufala given the restaurant's class. Just like the parmesan, it was average. Could've had more basil. The portion was decent. Instead of going for secondi or main course, went in for another salad, this time an unorthodox one- they call it insalata gennarino. And just like the sparsely seasoned soup, balsamic vinaigrette were found only in traces. A nudge was needed here. The problem with these nudges were that though there were a few waiters and probably only a couple of tables to serve, the call wasn't easy for me. Back to gennarino, the garlic was highly overpowering in it- it was as pungent as wasabi I could say and the aftertaste wasn't very pleasant. I'm sure the Italians would have never made it this way, but wasn't sure how else.

Time for the last order had come(earlier than anticipated) and I was in a fix whether to go for main course or not. Went through the detailed menu (very elaborate and long one) and decided to sweet things up after the garlic bomb (the last salad). A special tiramisu or as they call it, Tiramisu Italiano was what I eyed on. And the waiter said that the mascarpone was special. Having had two not very great cheese experiences, braved for the third and oh boy it paid off! Though slightly extra sweet (I don't have sugar otherwise, so it might just be the right regular sweetness), the texture and flavour was nothing short of a beauty 😋

Just past 11pm, the cheque was cleared and one of the staff came over to say that the restaurant is going to be closed! Well, I don't see a point in Zomato showing reservations at 11pm if that is the case and the gMaps entry showing a closing time of 11.30pm.

Need some tweaks here and there before it stars out for top place, but nevertheless a good peaceful dinner...

Having eaten at the Bangalore branch of Little Italy in the past, I came here with my family expecting a similar experience. Initially, my expectations were met and we ended up having a good service and relished the food as well.

However, the entire experience was ruined at the end by the actions (or rather inaction) of the manager. When the bill arrived, I noticed they were listed on PayTM (was printed on the folder of the bill) and on scanning it I found a deal for some discount on my amex card. I called one of the billing staff and confirmed if I can pay using it and asked them to verify the location as I was not familiar with the locality. Upon confirmation, I went ahead and made the payment. I waited for a staff to come take a photo of the payment, which is the usual protocol in most restaurants when paid using a third-party payment provider but they failed to come. I tried calling one of the staff and told them I paid and they merely nodded. Then I left with my family and as I walked out of the restaurant, we were summoned back by the manager. I showed my phone confirming the payment screen and asked if he needed to take a photo. Instead, he told me he hasn’t received the payment yet and asked me to repay the entire amount again without the discount. I asked him “why” as not only did I confirm with his staff before making the payment, but he also verified that the branch name, location, everything was perfect on showing the payment screen. But he insisted that he didn’t receive the payment. He clicked on their billing computer and showed me a list of orders and payments and told me that the amount wasn’t reflecting. Eventually he opened another tab viz. the PayTM merchant dashboard but he couldn’t figure out the password for logging into the portal. After 5-6 minutes of fidgeting, another staff came out and then logged in using the saved password on the browser and the very first entry was my payment. We were detained for 15 minutes and the restaurant wasted our time on their fault. Such a disappointing experience from the chennai branch of such a popular restaurant chain. I never faced such an experience back home. I only hope that they improve and fix their issues unless they want to...