La Casina Rossa Kathu — Restaurant in Kathu

I am very angry and totally disappointed with this misleading experience, because I had made a reservation few days earlier for a special San Valentine's dinner with my girlfriend and they didn't mention anything over the phone about the fact that we had to adhere only to the fixed "San Valentine's Menu" they prepared for the occasion. You can't imagine how frustrating it was for us to have to leave the place because, of course, we wanted to eat something different from the Menu considering that majority of those courses were not of our interest or simply we didn't like. Furthermore, they have not even tried to offer any alternative solution to maybe substitute some of the fixed dishes, leaving us with the unique choice to leave the place. I wonder how would you behave in the event of guests who might have food intolerances or dislike a course from your Menu, even after tasting it? Would you reply them "we apologies, but this is the only dish we can offer to you this evening"?!? Are you serious? Is this a restaurant or a school canteen? Luckily we found another restaurant not too far, which we enjoyed and where we were able to spend good time ordering whatever we pleased from the Menu and by the way, they also had a Valentine's Menu available. The first rule you should observe when running a business and before the food itself, is the clarity of the information you want to provide, otherwise this can inevitably and strongly deteriorate your reputation and presentation. Ps: I would suggest you to opt for a better outdoor lighting system, because I might agree that the soft light is romantic, but this was so dark that I seriously doubt someone would be able to see what's in the plate.

Update: Reply to the owner's reply

I have removed the part of the comment where I had assumed that "some other people might have left for the same reason". However, your brief, robotic and careless response confirms and denotes exactly your extreme inability to listen and understand my complaint. You don't have to apologize because the "Menu did not suit me" , but eventually because your "Menu" was the only available one and the information misleading. I have been living in Phuket for the past 5 years and visited a lot of Italian restaurants in Phuket already, and for different occasions (including Christmas or New Year Eve), and never had an issue or "misleading booking experiences". But on top of everything, never received back such heartless and mediocre reply. If before you still had a percentage of chance to make me change my mind, with this kind of "off topic defensive reply" you have definitely messed...

We ordered the ragu lasagna, which was good, the tuna pizza, just acceptable, but as soon as we tried the spaghetti carbonara we noticed that they were too salty, so we left the whole plate; The waiter asked us if we wanted it to go, and when we told him they were too salty, his "solution" was to cook them again.. What? Really? In all my years, both as a client and as a hospitality manager, it never crossed my mind to offer to recook the same ruined dish to a client. "Yes, we know how to do it" said the waiter. What the hell were they trying to do? Wash spaghetti and cook it again? Add vinegar and sugar? How can the management of an Italian-themed restaurant as luxurious as this one, with prices that far exceed their counterparts in tourist areas, without Kathu being one of them, be able to lower the quality of its product so much, offering tremendous nonsense to its customers? It may be that the waiter in question was incompetent, but from my experience in restaurants I am very afraid that this is what the management forces him to do by imposing that in the event of a culinary problem, it is the staff who pays the price of the dish, otherwise, they will normally it would have been to cook a new one or remove it from the bill, which they did not do, even though we left the plate whole. We were going to try the tiramisu but after that response worthy of a roadside BBQ house, we preferred to leave, never to return. To the Management: the cost of losing customers, permanent residents in Kathu, is much greater than preparing a pasta dish again. Terrible management for such a beautiful place... RESPONSE TO THE OWNER'S REPLY: Your thin and very short haired male service employee who worked on the night of April 21st was the one who made us that unfortunate offer to recook the dish served, and it was not a language error, your employees speak correct English, maybe you should do some research on the reviews of your diners before assuming a so defensive attitude. I have nothing personal against you, we don't know each other, I confirm you have a beautiful restaurant and we went to eat there time ago, before the renovation, that's why we was very disappointed with that kind of offer from your staff, also for charge the full price of the spoiled dish even though we left it whole. Following your advice, I have read other previous reviews and caught my attention your response to the critic of Malte n: "...if ask to our staff...we can replace or FIX IT." So, I have nothing more to add: a dinner that was going to be pleasant ruined by incompetent...

Simply not acceptable

We had decided to give the restaurant another try after a previous disappointment.

Where most dishes do taste very nice, we complained about the Mixed Salad, since it consisted of exactly 3 ingredients. Lots of lettuce, a few sad looking cherry tomatoes and randomly placed pieces of onion. No dressing no oil or balsamico. We had to request it. The entire salad looked boring and tasted boring. Upon mentioning this to the very friendly and polite thai staff, the owner Davide stormed to our table and opened the conversation with: what’s the problem? He lectured us in a sarcastic and condescending way how Italian mixed salad is prepared and stated that he thinks this portion was big enough. He completely ignored the fact that our complaint was not regarding the amount yet the ingredients/presentation. Davide, the myth that chefs are gods is outdated and definitely not applicable to you. Treat your guests with respect and listen to them. We definitely know what Insalata Mista should be like and yours was an utter disappointment. Another point to know about this restaurant: they do add 3% if you pay with a foreign credit card, which most other places do not do. My recommendation: look for another Italian restaurant where you can have a nice meal without...