Solina Pasta — Restaurant in Bath

Positives: Great food. Everything was super fresh and thanks to the open kitchen we could see them serving it straight from the cooking pan to the plate at the front counter. The service inside was good. Had to wait a little time to order but nothing major. Prices were really good. Some people have said the portions were small but the pasta is max £15 a plate, which is excellent value. We ordered 2 arancini each for starters which was just right. The beef ragu was quite nice but the venison bolognese was better. We are spoilt as the Italian in our home town of Cranleigh is excellent! The tiramisu was fantastic. We had 1 between us which again, was just right. The dishes came out in excellent time. The kitchen was excellent. My review in no way reflects the kitchen, it is what I have outlined below about the booking and seating (mainly the booking).

Negatives: The virtual queue system is utter crap. I have rarely had a more stressful experience trying to get in somewhere. They do not take bookings but they are incredibly busy (great combo!) Their solution is for you to join their virtual queue. They give you a QR code to scan, which takes you to their Instagram, which then has a link for the queue (so much faff!). You join it but it gives you no indication of where you are in the queue or how long it is. Our hotel was around a 15 minute walk away so we decided to drive to be safe. We had already been in the queue for 30 minutes, popped our head in and were told it would be at least another 30 minutes. We went for a drink and had just sat down (10 minutes later) when we got a text to say our table was ready. It said we had to reply in 5 minutes or they would give it away, then arrive within 10 minutes of replying! If they are that bothered about people not turning up for bookings I don't know why they don't just do a £10 non-refundable deposit or something. They are so busy they would have no problem getting a walk in to fill the table if somebody didn't turn up. Their seating is a lot of benches and we ended up sat with another couple. Although I am not massively against this I would have preferred to be sat on a table ourselves. Also the bench was connected so every time the guy next to me moved, it rocked the entire bench. We were also told that if we ordered starters and mains together then the mains might come out whilst we were still eating the starters. If we wanted them spaced then we had to order them spaced. Again, it's just annoying. We were not bothered about it but I kept thinking 'just operate like a normal restaurant!'

Overall it was nice food but a pretty rubbish experience. We would not go back and I think they place...

So bad I refused to pay service charge!

The first time at this place we ate lunch in a nearly empty restaurant.. Cacio e pepe and arancini were decent and the service was ok. Since they are new, we wanted to support them so we decided they were good enough to try in the evening.

Babysitter had been arranged for Saturday early evening. We entered the electronic queue and headed to the restaurant. Just before arriving, the phone pinged to tell us a table was now free. When we arrived, there was a small queue outside of 10 or so. We were quickly ushered down into a dingy, dusty cellar with no windows, cheap furniture and a very large toilet door. One sad couple sat in the corner of an empty room with about 30 empty chairs. My wife told the hostess that the room was awful and rejected the table offered, which was right next to the toilet door. The hostess scowled and reluctantly offered a two-seat table in the corner. We sat down and I suggested we just leave but my wife insisted that we make the best of it.

When the waitress came I asked why there was an electronic queue when there were plenty of empty seats. She explained that the queue outside were people who had already been offered and rejected the cellar room. She offered to put us at the back of the electronic queue so that we could wait for a table upstairs - god knows how long this would have taken! I asked for her to move us upstairs if a seat became available, She said there was no chance and claimed that the queue outside was now snaking round the corner.

Anyway, we quickly ate some rather so-so pasta and asked for the bill after 30 mins. A guy comes up with the machine and I told him to take the service charge off. He asked me why and I politely referred him to the waitress. At which point he risibly tried to scold me for not asking for the management. It isn't my job to train their staff.

As an aside, when we left there was no queue and there were several empty tables. And.... I hadn't noticed... but my wife told me afterwards that at the table she could smell various odours emanating from the toilets.

In sum, not even close to good enough as an evening restaurant and seemingly not much interest from the...

Refreshing to have an Italian restaurant out of many in the city of Bath to pride itself on freshly made pasta, which you can clearly see being made in front of your very own eyes.

Be aware they don’t take reservations. Instead they have a virtual queue system, which works pretty well if you’re a plan on the day kinda person. In this day and age I understand why a restaurant would prefer this method as last minute reservation cancellations can affect a restaurant’s profitability. However, maybe Solina should think about having a mix of tables that can be reserved ahead of time and tables that are only available via the virtual queue system.

Anyway let’s get to the food. The pasta dishes we ordered were delicious, the beef shin ragu and the ravioli mushroom with truffle source were the highlights. I would say the portion size to cost ratio wasn’t the best, but this is a place where you go for the quality of food rather than the quantity. As for dessert, the must try dish is the tiramisu. I could easily go back (virtually queue up for) just for the tiramisu, it was really to die for.

All in all it was a great experience. Service was friendly and attentive. The interior and dining environment added to it with the extremely high ceilings, windows and the sympathetically restored Georgian features. It would make a great place for a date night, more so if you could book a table in advance… hence the not quite so perfect 5...