BASTA Åhléns — Restaurant in Stockholm

I was always intrigued by the queue of people waiting to enter the Italian restaurant Basta. No matter if it was the middle of the week or the weekend, there was always a queue. I finally made reservations and found out for myself where the madness came from. I have to admit that the first impression after entering the premises captivates. Beautifully decorated place. Everything thought out and stylized with the greatest taste. And that smell...permeated every inch of the restaurant. It was impossible to go out and eat nothing. I ordered Pizza Mama's Garden and Tonno Siciliano salad. As for the salad, it's a nice combination of flavors. Unfortunately, the tuna is not of the best quality. It was just fibrous. The pizza is poor. But that wasn't the worst. The dough, not including the edges, was wet and so thin that it was impossible to eat. Fortunately, the drinks were very tasty and presented nicely. The last nail in the coffee that made me not return to this restaurant was coffee and tiramisu. After all, this is what Italy is famous for, and here's a disappointment. Coffee very weak and bland. When I make tiramisu at home, I use mascarpone cheese as opposed to the one in the restaurant. I think the owners got a little lost. If they want to have restaurants always at a high level, they have to take care of everything themselves. And at the moment we have sold visions of a restaurant where we will eat like at mom's. And that impression really is. However, if we stay in the premises longer, we will notice that everything is happening too quickly. No time to focus on details,...

The restaurant is in a splendid location and we booked to ensure that we had a table outside on the terrace. If you are planning on coming here then you should absolutely check the availability before hand. I booked a table only the night before. The atmosphere within the restaurant was great, the interior was colourful and inviting. The staff were extremely friendly, polite and service minded. It was a very nice touch with the restaurant having a DJ playing a good mix of music to keep everyone’s energy high. We started with drinks, Dirty Passion and a Capri Basilico, nice drinks. We also ordered an antipasti for two. Good selection of cheese and meat. The portion was a good size for an appetiser but it would have been nice with a little extra focaccia bread on the plate. For the main course we took the Big Boy Manzo and Pasta Tartufo. The truffle pasta was lovely but unfortunately the Big Boy Manzo was lacking in flavour and was bland. The red wine, not sure of the name was well matched to both dishes. Dessert consisted of a Lemon Sundae and a Pistachio Pannacotta. We took the opportunity of also ordering in dessert drinks, Lemon cheesecake and Amaretto sour. All of these options were delicious and suited our tastes. Overall the dinning experience was good here and I would recommend a visit if the opportunity arises. If we do go back in the future I wouldn’t order the same main again as I thought it was lacking in flavour even though the meat...

Chaotic experience and lack of information - don’t waste your time here!!!

We are two 18-year-old girls who were looking forward to a nice evening, but unfortunately, it turned into a huge disappointment. We had booked a table for 8:45 pm and spent a long time searching for the restaurant. We spent a full 30 minutes trying to find the place and even asked other people we came across who were also looking—and they had actually given up. After a lot of confusion, we finally spotted an almost hidden sign by an elevator in a shopping center that said “Basta” and indicated the restaurant was on the fourth floor.

When we tried to take the elevator up, we found out it didn’t even go to the fourth floor, and we ended up in the basement instead. When we finally found our way and were met by a staff member at the entrance, we explained that we had a reservation. To our surprise, he asked about our age and told us there was a 21+ age requirement—which had not been clearly stated anywhere on the website or in the reservation.

All in all, it was a really bad experience. We feel like we wasted our time and were let down by poor communication and a lack of clear signage. Definitely not a place we would...