Fratelli — Restaurant in Belfast

Visited for dinner on Saturday and was overwhelmingly disappointed with the experience.

-We had tried to call the restaurant multiple times throughout the day with no answer at any point. I understand Saturdays are a busy day, but we must have tried about six different times. -When we arrived there was a small queue of two groups at the door - which you would have taken as a good sign we were in for a lovely meal - but unfortunately we stood there for close to 15 minutes before we were sat. There was one girl who was sitting folk but this takes time. When we did get seen to there was no 'thanks for waiting' 'sorry to keep you' which started us off on a negative perception of the place. The only reason I mention this is due to the wording on the booking page which explicitly states 'We cannot guarantee your table will still be available if you are more than 15 minutes late for the reservation, please contact us via phone if you are running late' - no one answers the phone anyway, but where is this attitude for when the restaurant doesn't seat you when you arrive within your time with no acknowledgement? -At the time of booking we requested an 'upstairs' table - we were not sat upstairs. Again, i understand that sometimes requests cannot be met and its subject to availability however most restaurants will also include this wording on their website to advise guests of this. It should, however, have at least been mentioned when getting sat that the space we had asked for wasnt have been available. -The table we were sat at the booth side seats were dirty with crumbs and bits of food. The lady who sat us watched me wipe my seat as i sat, the tables beside us were then reset by two different staff members - none of which thought to wipe down the seat as they placed the new cutleries and glassware on the table. The next bookings who came in to those tables did infact sit on dirty seats. -Every other table around us seemed to receive breadsticks and some sort of dip thing? We sat and worked out if it was possibly down if you ordered a starter or not but there was no pattern to it - we just didnt receive any. -We ordered and food came quickly, which is possibly one of the saving graces to our experience. However, the spiced fennel sausage pasta with tomato and marscapone sauce can only be compared to a M&S ready meal. Bang average would be me putting it nicely. The carbonara was, to be fair, fantastic. We were checked back on - told our waiter food was 'okay' and there was nothing more said on it and he left. -Our plates were cleared and we were asked if we wanted anything else, which we replied no - i will also mention our drinks were empty at this point too. I understand it may be the restaurants process to not immediately offer the bill at this point so as to not be seen to rush guests out the door - i can appreciate that completely, but we were then left sitting at our empty table with empty drinks with clearly no desire to spend any more time or money in this restaurant for approx 20 minutes before anyone ever came back in our direction to ask if we wanted the bill. -On exiting we must have passed by about 6 staff members, not one of them as much as smiled at any customer in direct eyeline. Your staff are a representation of your brand, and if the experience wasnt already a negative one the staff didnt help my impression.

I would have loved to have spoken to a manager at any point during my visit to explain all this directly - im sure there was a valid reason for some of it/it could have been rectified at the time but i didnt see one throughout my visit. If you are going to charge almost £30 for a bowl of pasta in some cases, i would expect the level of service to be considerably higher than we received at the weekend.

Google reviews doesnt let you give 0 stars, but honestly the carbonara was good enough to justify being slightly above. A good italian is hard to find in belfast so we were looking forward to this meal but from somewhere set to 'ooze rustic italian charm' it was overall completely...

Honestly very disappointed in this place. The tall gentleman who greeted us was inviting, I formative and really helpful in general, while making us feel welcome. He even got our son a wee chef hat and apron. Lovely touch of service and trying to make it a fun experience for the kids which was greatly appreciated - off to a good start.

The young lady who then took over as our server took about twice as long as any restaurant I've ever been to before, to take our order. She also filled the crayon glass for our son with water instead of mine which I found to be a really odd mistake, but fine, these things happen.

Waited a while for food - not too bad, but long enough considering all our order was was: Chicken parmesan Pepperoni pizza Kids pepperoni pizza Glass of wine

Really simple and quick stuff, so not sure why it took so long. Also, the place was half-full, which rules out the busy restaurant excuse.

Food arrives and it's well below average. The pizza was really oily, basic flavour wise and had a lot of crust to pizza ratio. Son didn't care for the pizza either. He always finishes pizza when we go out (everywhere else also has better portions for kids pizzas btw), and he barely ate a quarter of it before stopping. The side of skin on fries were undercooked by a solid 4 minutes at least. Chicken parmesan was pretty nice - can't complain where there is no room for it. Waitress was absent throughout meal to check on us and when I asked for the card machine, we honestly waited for about 15 minutes, now that doesn't sound like the end of the world, but our table was literally right beside the machine and only till, and she was not busy at all, looked at her several times, and was just outright ignoring us. Awful service. 1 star is generous.

Then the bill came to £94 with a 5% service charge added without asking - I really hate that in a restaurant. This isn't America, your service is paid for by your employer. This bill is an absolute joke for what we got. You can get the same meal in villa Italia (where the food is so much better) for literally half the price.

It's such a shame, because it started so well, but fell apart so fast due to the server, food and ridiculous price.

Sorry to say I'll never go back....

Went to Fratellis prior to seeing Sister Act at the Grand Opera House. Booked in advance, reviews were good and prices seemed ok.

We were seated in the corner beside the kitchen on an elevated seating area. The tables are extremely close together on either side so your conversation is drowned out by other people so you talk louder to compensate...but so do they.

The server was very attentive and pleasant when bringing out 3 large bread sticks and a ramekin of Tuna dip (Which was very nice). We ordered a small portion of Rigatoni (£9) and a large portion of Carbonara (£16). While we waited, we got a Bramble berry (£10.50) and 2x pints of beer (11.00)

The meal came covered in Parmesan which overpowered the food. The rigatoni came in a bowl but the carbonara came in a bowl with a large ring on it to make it look bigger when in fact, the portion sizes were identical. My advice? Order the small and save money as they are the same.

My guest picked at theirs and tried to enjoy it but ended up eating the bread sticks instead. I tried to eat mine which was nice, spaghetti cooked right, creamy sauce but the pancetta was almost entirely made of fat. Again though, the plethora of parmesan overpowered everything else so I managed about a third of the dish.

When asked if everything was ok, we were polite and said that it seemed nice but the meal was too salty. The server apologised and asked if we wanted to see the dessert menu. We politely declined and asked for the bill.

Unfortunately, they don't take complaints into account when calculating your bill. Didn't like the food? You ordered it so you're charged for it. Too much salt in the dish? You didn't say "easy on the salt" so you're charged for it.

That was our first time trying this place but it will be the last. I'm hoping it was a one off issue but it was too much money to spend to walk away feeling hungry (and thirsty because...