La Panza — Restaurant in Bristol

we were anxious to know the place, by the qualification on the internet! we arrived at the restaurant we had a reservation for two, the waiter received us and took us to the table. that's when the problems started it was a table for two super tight, low that didn't have room to put your legs and it was between a door, very uncomfortable! So my wife ordered a burrata with ham, and I ordered an arancini and the waiter said there was no ham there was no focaccia and countless other things on Saturday 7pm, we chose only one starter the Arancini and the waiter said we would have to order the starter the main course together because the kitchen was busy. we only wanted to order the entry at that time! we don't like this situation so we just ordered the arancini and a water! The arancini took 40 minutes to arrive at our table, when it arrived there was only 1 arancini, if we can call that Arancini because it was a fried ball stuffed with cheese and ham, not an arancini! so we decided to leave after all that. we went to pay the bill the waiter said the amount and I went to pay, and then another unpleasant inconvenience I passed the card and he informed that it was declined, I was surprised and said to repeat it I changed it for another card and it happened again so I asked him to check if the machine it was working, and I asked him to replace the card machine, because I had money in the account, obviously. I opened the application for my bank account and showed him that I had money he said it was not his problem very rudely, until another waiter arrived and very politely repeated the payment he saw that the card machine was defective at that time I was super bothered by so many problems, so he changed the card machine and the payment was approved! in short I will never go back to this restaurant we went out to have fun, and it was a horrible experience in this place that I do not...

La Panza was a big disappointment - here's why: Prior to arriving I'd scoped out a few options on the menu, however, only after we'd order our drinks about half an hour after being seated - the server told us that he was out of all three of the options I was hoping for.

I felt a bit cheated because this should have been shared when we were seated, not after our drinks order, so we were hungry and already had a tab open.

Also, when we arrived, the server seemed a bit off - like, not at all present. We were barely greeted and chose our table. His service was non-existent. Slow. No interaction... and they charge a 10% service charge. Your service better be good if you're popping that on the bill.

Food was only ok - tbh, the choice is a bit limited. It seems like everyone was going for the same thing. Also, pardon my lack of italian, but all the ingredients are in italian...i know, this makes me sounds like a mug, but consider when you're looking at a menu, trying to decide and you can only understand pesto and basil in the ingredient list because ham, cheeses and the like all use specific names. Small complaint but still, no one wants to choose something because it's the only option they can understand.

My companion also wanted a creamy pasta, which they couldn't do. Almost everything was tomato based...and really REALLY salty.

When our food arrived I could tell neither of us really enjoyed it. Mine was covered in parmesan...urgh (at least ask before you cover it in cat sick smelling cheese). And no black pepper was offered, nor did the waiter offer to put it on. Idk but like come on, even a pizza express will come round with pepper and parmesan. It's a small thing but I was getting annoyed...what were we paying top dollar for exactly...? Cutlery and napkins served in a tomato tin too. It felt like a weatherspoons with premo prices.

Definitely wouldn't recommend. So incredibly...

I think Google reviews here are overhyping La Panza. I’ve ordered with my partner focaccia, calamari, mussel and amatriciana.

Focaccia felt like homemade and it was pretty good. 4/5

Calamari was served with mayo with added black ink. Calamari had still a nice texture and were fresh 4/5

I think mussel pasta included 2 different mussels: the fresh one in shell and not that fresh being a part of the sauce. Menu mentioned tomato sauce but it covered fully taste of the fresh seafood. From the other hand, the non-fresh mussel tasted very fishy and were killing the whole flavour. 2/5

Amatriciana was very simple and felt like bucatini with the average passata from grocery shop. I couldn’t feel any special taste of tomatoes and guanciale didn’t give that much flavour to the dish. 2/5

I tried many pastas and these were definitely the smallest portions which I ever seen in Bristol. I have paid nearly £50 for all of it but we felt it was way overpriced. I fully understand these are authentic Italian dishes but when I went out from La Panza, I felt like I could cook it without any bigger problem at home and the high price for these dishes definitely didn’t come with unique food experience. You can get a really good experience for same price in other pasta restaurants in the city centre and you will definitely remember for longer. That's the reason why at the end I can give only 2/5 stars. If prices could match the quality and portions then it could be maybe like 3.5/5 - just for a...