Il Leone Mastrantonio — Restaurant in City Centre

This is one of my top three restaurants in Cape Town and they have the best pasta in Cape Town by far! There is simply no competition.

This restaurant is also an introverts dream. Muted decor, wonderful lighting and the restaurant remains largely quiet with only ambient music playing. This means it is a brilliant place for sharing great conversation with friends and there is no need to shout over the music to hear each other.

In addition the staff are impeccable. They know their menu, they make brilliant recommendations and their service is seamless. A particular highlight for me is there respect of the diner. There is no checking with you every five minutes about "how things are going" and they anticipate your needs. You think you've finished your still water...nope they already filled it up for you without uttering a word.

A staple for me is the tuna carpaccio and the four cheese gnocchi. Both are an absolute must try! Anything with their seasonable, fresh porcini is a hit as well.

Book a table as this is a popular place so that you can avoid disappointment.

A beautiful restaurant for a special occasion, a date and certainly for a night out spoil.

The menu is really well priced for what you get but is a bit more expensive than your mediocre neighborhood Italian bistro. 110% worth...

Sadly Il leone (being an absolute favourite restaurants for the last 4 years) has definitely gone down hill.

I phoned to make a booking and offered to spell my name (as most places usually get it wrong, I was told by the not so friendly lady, “I know how to spell!” ~ Quite rude and very awkward but I let it go...

Few weeks after, I phoned and made a booking with another lady for this past Thursday for 8 of us, most of whom haven’t been and my husband and I have been raving about the food for quite some time. The woman I spoke to took my name (I didn’t dare offer to spell it again!), surname and she also took my cellphone nr and all was confirmed on the phone - I made 100% sure and she read all details back to me.

We got to the restaurant and what do you know... NOT a trace of a booking and the not so lovely male owner was unbelievably rude and didn’t offer to rectify one of his staff’s mistakes nor apologise and we got placed outside in the cold and he was never at our table again...very embarrassing to say the least.

I am extremely saddened and shocked by the RUDE service (or lack thereof) received! Our waitresses was amazing but management / ownership needs some...

THIS PLACE IMPOSES A 10% MANDATORY TIP WITHOUT TELLING YOU UPFRONT AND BULLIES TOURISTS

The above speaks for itself. We rounded up the bill which practically provided for a 7% tip and the waitress took a look at the receipt with our written tip amount, threw it away and then printed a new receipt for us and told us a 10% tip on top of the meal price plus VAT is mandatory. It is not stated anywhere in the menu that we had to tip this amount and it’s not a lot of money but the way it was delivered was extremely rude. The waitress who dealt with us also kept harassing us and saying passive aggressive things like “can you calculate 10% without a calculator?”. I can’t help but to feel that we were targeted for being tourists and bullied.

Anyway, the food was mid and overpriced. The pasta was not al dente, the meat dishes were overcooked / chewy.

The restaurant also tries to upsell water to its customers. We were not told the price and were served 2 bottles of 750ml water (which costs ~7€/140ZAR in total). We would expect that the price of something that costs 50% of a pasta/main dish would be told to customers.

You can find much better food and better...