Basil' Pizza & Pasta El Nido — Restaurant in El Nido

The first time I went there I had a decent pizza.

The second time I went there, on my birthday, I walked out due to the abhorrent service.

One girl was particularly toxic and insulting.

Some simmering.

The rest just gormless.

Actually, no, the pizza cooks downstairs are the best.

They also run the entrance and are full of smiles and positive energy.

They invited me in and said that the pizza had stopped but pasta is on.

Great! Let's try the pasta this time.

But upstairs I was met with about 5 kitchen staff staring at me as I sat down.

I looked away.

I look back.

Still staring.

I try to change the energy with a smile.

It works.

But still...

You want to confront the customer?

I shouldn't even have to go through that.

Anyway...

There's a table eating and some other customers paying and quite a few waiters and waitresses doing nothing.

No welcome.

No menu.

Ignoring.

So, I go up to the group of waiters and I ask a waitress are you still serving?

Politely.

She ignores me with a look of contempt on her face.

I wait about 5 seconds.

I ask the others gormlessly looking at me.

There must be 5 front of house.

No reply.

I ask again.

The girl who ignored me contemptuously says they are open but only pasta.

Me still standing opens the menu and looks.

But the emotion inside me is one of disgust and outrage.

And I will not pay for disrespect.

I walk off.

Whoever owns this business needs to fire that waitress immediately and train the other waiters and waitresses more.

Any arrogance, toxic, passive aggressive mean, surly, gormless behaviour will ruin a restaurant.

A shame because the pizza is good enough and those cooks are doing 2 jobs in 1...

We were looking for an Italian place to eat in El Nido and came across Basil on the main street. Positive: Restaurant location: conveniently situated in the center. Negative: I ordered the carbonara pasta and to my surprise, it was not the authentic Italian carbonara recipe. I wouldn't recommend this dish. The restaurant premises are not wheelchair accessible for people with mobility challenges. The establishment only accepts cash. I ordered a soda water, but it wasn't listed on the menu. When I asked about the price, I was told it's 100 pesos, like the other sodas listed. So, I ordered 2. To my surprise at the checkout, I was charged 120 pesos. It's not about the 40 peso difference, but more about the establishment's reaction, not acknowledging the mistake and unwillingness to rectify it. Also, 120 pesos for a soda water in the Philippines is quite expensive. It gets very hot inside the establishment, probably due to the pizza oven in the room just below. Suggestions for improvement: Be more honest with your customers and own up to your mistakes.

It's unfortunate that in 2023, some establishments still don't accept credit cards. Card payments make life easier for travelers. We prefer not to carry a...

We visited Basil twice because we loved the 5 cheese pizza. The first time, there was a wait but of course we can understand as it is a very busy place. We took 2 pizzas the service was quite slow but we didn’t mind. The second time around it was a disaster we sat at a dirty table that none bothered to clean only after 10 minutes of sitting there and asking the waitress to clean it they noticed us so we asked for a menu which never arrived so I went up and got it myself then we were trying to order but none was noticing us even the table next to us asked from a waitress to come and take our order because they saw we were struggling and even after that none came. So again after 40 minutes of being in the restaurant I went up to the counter to order myself a very polite waiter that served us the first day apologized and started taking my order until the rudest manager I have ever encountered came closed the menu that I had and told me “ ok mam finished” and I hadn’t even started ordering. I find this very disrespectful. It is a pity because the food was actually good but the service needs some training and the manager need to learn...