Bottega PJ — Restaurant in Petaling Jaya

This review is aimed at the owners of this establishment and not the service and kitchen staff who work hard for their restaurant. It’s a one star review because I feel a need to balance out the average rating of this restaurant.

We came in this Sunday evening for dinner with about 30 people, a family group reservation. We sat across 4 smaller, adjacent tables.

Staff were good to us, food was mostly prompt (in some cases very fast as some tables were already being served food before others had ordered, this is good as it indicates quick service), and as far as I could tell there was no issue at all with service for the evening.

My complaint is with the food. On our table of 8, we ordered 16 items (15 unique items, only one double order), including mains/pastas/pizzas and some small sides and one dessert.

Now, we know most of these dishes are not share plates or intended for sharing. But we have a habit of sharing (just a little bit of) each other’s mains, meaning we sample each other’s dishes if we want to, for the sake of trying them. This means you end up with multiple opinions on some of the dishes.

The mushroom risotto was probably the best dish of the night - if only we’d had more of this. The pizzas (we had 3 types) were very average at best (smoked cheese and speck pizza was the best of the 3), this was the opinion of the table, as we shared the pizzas around.

On the table we had other pastas and risottos. I personally had the prawn linguine and I found this to be a very small portion, and very lacking in flavour and ingredients. This is normally one of the star or better dishes of restaurants featuring pastas. This was quite a disappointment. The table also agreed that the carbonara was not very suited to us. Feedback given to me was that the beans pasta special, the vegetable risotto special, and the pork loin main dishes were not great as well. There was no positive feedback on the other main dishes.

The wild mushroom and Japanese spinach sides were quite good, but these are very small portions of sides, it is well and truly disappointing when the main dishes are such a letdown and the highlights are the small side dishes.

The bill came to about myr 110 per person or myr 3300 in total for the 30 persons (including 4 very young kids so really that’s more like myr 130 per adult), including a little bit of alcohol (wine) for less than half of the group.

In my opinion this is highly, highly overpriced for the quality of food served and the portions presented.

As it was a family occasion I did not want to cause a fuss in the middle of service (and I never like to send back a dish or complain to the kitchen in the middle of a meal unless an order has been made wrong), so we finished the food, and I waited until the guests had left and the bill was paid, before passing on my feedback to staff. To be fair, they did acknowledge that little could be done after the meal was over, and if I had said something mid meal they could have tried to provide alternatives, but again I am not in the habit of taking bites out of my food and sending it back to the kitchen, and if alternatives were a real option then the number of complaints would not be practical, probably, because I genuinely feel that our table was very disappointed at the food, but we would never send back food unless an order had been messed up.

This is one of the longest reviews I’ve ever written, for whatever reason I was just highly disappointed. Because in most meals you have some good dishes and some not so good dishes, but in this case, only a tiny number of dishes (most of them sides) were nice, others were quite average, most were overpriced or needing improvement.

Thanks again to the staff that served us, and it is nice to see a dog friendly establishment, which is rare in sit down restaurants or in this part...

A new and latest happening in this part of PJ, a just newly opened italian restaurant opposite Taman Megah residence front main entrance. Its a new branch set up from the one at bkt Ceylon and in penang. We were there for the soft opening last Sunday for 7 paxs, if anything to go by, it wasn't packed but still managed to received quite a, few ( more than 40 bookings). The chef was an Italian guy going by the title of the Kitchen Guy,, Mr Giuseppe Zanotti, from it's penang branch. We were cordially greeted and since we made a booking, we were shown our table. The atmosphere is rather simar to bkt Ceylon place, but much bigger, the restaurant took up 2 lots formerly occupied by Famous Amos company. After seated, we ordered a northern Italian vine, a 2020 vintage Sauvignon, bel trame white which was lively and bright. After that we settle for our food, of course, who can forget their main signature offering, the meat and cheese platter, a pizza scamorza, a creamy spaghetti for 2, rotagli, a ravioli.and lastly a The cheese board came with a bread, took us while to finish it off together with a dipping of olive oil and a 25 year aged balsamic vinegar ( goes very well with the bread and cheese) so Much so, we ordered an additional bread tray ( which came in Chinese dim sum tray) Overall the dishes ordered came orderly fashion, 1st with a complimentary plate of risotto with chopped meat( thank you Giuseppe) Then came our spaghetti with chopped bacon . The pizza came with meat ( salami) slices. Last a huge plate of stewed pork ribs, stewed for several hours. It turned out delicious and was total gone except for the rib bones We were also complimented with a tiramisu and an almond cake slice. Both were creamy, soft while the almond slice was tasty. I ended with a cup of cuppocino. The coffee was par excellent, creamy and roasty flavourful. I visited Italy before and they love their thick exoresso, which I will order another day. The service wasn't fantastic but then all are new and it's opening night! Of course some hick ups are expected!! We started before 8 and it was pass 10.30 when we left.. We did fully enjoyed all our meal and were rather full when we walked back. I certainly would recommend others to try and have a taste of real Italian food. By the way the spaghetti was extra creamy, cooked with no creameries but eggs and cheese and bacon meat. This joint offers zero fusion dish found elsewhere.Even their Pizza was different from those chain outlets It is notable this restaurant also does retail of Italian / meditterian items such as olive oil, balsamic vinegar and etc all those item retailed in house were curated by bottega's management ( even all their cheeses and cold meats) . Of course this new place is much more spacious than at bkt ceylon. By the way the floor manager is called luca and seek his assistance if you're unfamiliar with their menu, who will be only too glad to explain their dishes. Totally satisfied for my family and guests and will return soon, perhaps this time for father's day next month!! Who knows!! Ciao and thanks to guiseppe Zanotti for. the soft...

You seriously need to consider changing your supervisor because she's driving away all your customers!

We called ahead for a booking, and we were told to just walk in because apparently, all the tables were fully booked. So, we arrive at 8:30, and what do we see? First of all, no one even bothers to attend to us. After struggling, we finally manage to grab hold of a lady who supposedly turns out to be the supervisor. And guess what she tells us? There are no tables available. That's it! She practically tells us to leave without even giving us the option to wait. Can you believe that?

So, we suggest to her that we're willing to wait and she just brushes us off, claiming that all the customers have just arrived, even though we can clearly see a few tables already halfway through their meals. We then propose the idea of leaving our phone numbers, so that she can call us as soon as a table is available. And you know what we find out while we're waiting? There are actually three empty tables! There's a long table that can seat eight people and two four-seater tables. We ask her why she's not allowing us to have those tables, and she tells us that the smaller ones are reserved and the long table is for larger groups. But here's the kicker—we're a group of six! Can you believe the audacity?

As we continue to wait, within just ten minutes, people start leaving. So, we approach the lady again, hoping for some good news. But what does she tell us? The table is still reserved. And guess what happens next? Another customer walks in, gets the same treatment, and leaves. It's an absolute disgrace! Finally, after another ten minutes or so, we get seated at the long table, thanks to a guy named Miah who insisted. But just when we think things are finally going smoothly, the lady comes over and asks us to move to a smaller table for four. Thank goodness Miah stood his ground.

But you know what makes everything even worse? Throughout the entire night, that supposedly reserved table remains empty! Can you believe the incompetence? If you think having too many customers is an excuse to keep her as your supervisor, then by all means, continue down this path of terrible service.

Despite that, the food here is equally as good as...