Locanta italian restaurant — Restaurant in Birmingham

I first visited this restaurant with a group of friends 20 years ago and was not impressed, however I was willing to give it a try again- what a mistake. To begin with, the restaurant interior has not been decorated since probably 1988 and while this could have been charming, it is not if it doesn't look as if it has been cleaned since then. Tables were sticky& dirty, children's uncleaned grotty high tables were crammed into alcoves right next to the table they put us on. The loos were also dreadful where, though, there was a note apologising for them being renovated it looked like this was a job that had been going on for some time, I literally had to walk over lose broken floor tiles step over a builder's work station to get to the ladies .... if you are going to renovate an area of importance to customer service you close and do it properly for a week or a few days and get the job done, not leave your customers to walk through a building site. Given this I wasn't holding much hope for the food and I was sad to receive predicatively a dreadful meal. I ordered the mushrooms as a starter which came swimming in over cooked oil, no taste of garlic or anything else of freshness, my main course was also very disappointing, the food was just walloped on a plate, the meat overcooked and tasteless, burnt beans and carrots looking like they came from frozen packaging which they probably did; a boiled shoe would have been more appetising. Where I have seen previous reviews of this restaurant offering authentic Italian food, let me tell you, real Italian food is served with love, flavour, care and consideration, none of which I found in this cuisine. What was overwhelmingly disgusting was the service, it is beyond awful, overall the waiters need to be trained in general etiquette and I mean understanding that this is 2019 and women are considered equal in this society. For example, where my husband was really embarrassed and I was quite insulted was that they only greeted him as we entered their restaurant, they sat him down walked in between him and myself and left me by the door. As we were looking through our menu, we choose which wine we were going to have as my husband was driving and he only wanted one glass, he was not bothered much what we would drink so we chose my favourite wine. They came over to take our order and as I ordered the wine they actually turned to my husband and told him my selection would not go with the meal I had ordered for myself- Unbelievable! During the whole of our time there not once did any of the waiters address me at any time at all, they only spoke to my husband, I might have not existed. Even when I complained about my food the waiters apologised to my husband- not to me- and took the bill straight to him as a matter of assumption. Their coffee was burned and served with spoons that are milkshake spoons. Seriously? I think Locanta should wake up and smell the 21st Century, get out there and whats done in the real world, even the most rubbish of chain restaurants offer better value and customer service than this, but obviously they don't care as their attitude certainly does suggest that. Yes I am angry we totally wasted two hours of our lives in this excuse for a restaurant and -yep, I don't think even Gordon Ramsey can save this one.....Save yourselves the bother, give this one a...

A great review to start-at-the-end: If you are in this area, free to and wanting to eat-out; be nice to yourself and whoever you are with and visit this restaurant. The chances of you being disappointed are very small. The food is good. The service is friendly, courteous, efficient, knowledgeable. The decor is quirky, engaging and interesting. The ambience is brilliant. Put all of these comments into a mixing bowl trying to get to an overal summing up statement and what comes out is one word: SPECTACULAR. The inside (downstairs is the place to book) is an eclectic mix of what many might call 'too much stuff' but in being exactly that a charming antiquity emerges. Is it an old restaurant bar in France, or Italy that has been open for many years and nothing has been thrown away? Has a person owned it for a hundred years and it's full of history? There are dozens of bottles of wine & champagne on shelving all around. Some are empty, some full, some covered in dust, others only just beginning to acquire that look. Some are for sale and others just for the collection. Locanta is precisely the dining experience that all restaurants should be today; it is more than enough to entice us out of the house, encourage us to spend hard-earned money on food that the majority of us (still) can't reproduce at home. Take your time, ask questions, savour the food, drink classic wines, enjoy a superb Limoncella, relax and go home happy and satisfied. We will most definitely make this our go-to restaurant when visiting the area. I suggest you do too.

EDIT ONE MONTH LATER: Just visited again ......

This was a last minute decision to eat out on Christmas Day, given I'd been at work all day. A bit of a wait for starters and main. Starters were enjoyable, however after a chat with the owner/manger who was a pleasant and friendly gentleman I opted for an off menu steak option. In the mangers defense he did say it was a 'big' Ribeye cut and offered a decent discount, BUT I should have asked how big before saying medium rare. When it eventually arrived, it was more than a kilo, absolutely huge. This size of steak doesn't fair well rare and the fat was totally unedible, and parts of the meat almost raw were chewy and very difficult to cut with all the tendons. The accompanying diane sauce was nice, veg aldente, however the potatoes were a little dry and overcooked. My daughters seafood linguini was ok however, she found the sauce a little spicy and the scallops chewy. I took most of my Ribeye home and finished it off in the oven next day for dinner and it was lovely. The lesson for me on this dining experience is that bigger is most certainly not always better 😆 I would be open to revisting to try something else...