Prezzo Italian Restaurant Canterbury — Restaurant in Canterbury

Unfortunately, it will likely be the last time we visit this restaurant. The waiter who looked after us for the majority of the meal, Mykhalio, was amazing, but was not enough to make up for our disappointment. Had it not been for him, service would have been 1 star.

My wife ordered two starters for her only meal, while others had a combination of starters and mains. She does not have a big appetite and struggles to find food she enjoys due to various difficulties that do not involve allergies or intolerances, but other difficulties that make ordering a lot of foods difficult. She always reads descriptions very carefully and hates being a burden in restaurants, so we always try our best to never make a mistake when ordering.

However, after ordering our food, one of my wife’s starters came out on a bed of sauce, something which we were not aware of and would have asked to remove had we known. Even with five people at the table, no one realised the description stated this method of serving.

When we kindly asked if there’s a chance we could have it switched for a new portion with no sauce so my wife could eat it, we were told that we’d be charged for the batch we couldn’t eat, as it was clearly stated on the menu how it was served.

When ordering our food, we made clear to the waitress that we’ve only ever ordered this starter on Deliveroo and she already had to help us figure out which sauce it is usually served with. She did not mention the other sauce and it has never been served with it on takeout options.

We studied the menu in private after being told we couldn’t have the food changed for free, and found that the description clearly stated that the starter was “served with” this sauce. Nowhere does it say or warn that the food will be served ON a bed of sauce.

I myself have waitresses for a decade and if I had been the waitress serving the table, I would have asked if my wife wanted the sauce on the side, knowing that she’d said clearly she usually only orders this dish for delivery and doesn’t know what it looks like in person or what it is served with. This sort of initiative is clearly not part of the training for the staff at this branch.

We did not make a fuss in the moment as we had friends visiting from out of town and didn’t want to make a fuss in public. My wife simply ate her other starter and left mostly hungry as she was relying on getting a full meal.

Additionally, my wife was the only person at the table ordering two starters as a main, and while she explained that the kitchen can serve her food whenever it’s easiest for them (with starters or mains), the rest of us did not ask for this, so we were surprised when we hadn’t even finished our starters when the mains were being served to the table. Even as the staff saw us trying to quickly eat what was left of our previous course and simultaneously struggle to make room on the table for the extra plates, they did not check if we were ready or attempt to give us time to finish, they simply placed the plates on the table as quickly as possible. When one of us eventually asked for some empty plates to be removed, we were snapped at that they needed to finish serving up mains.

We recommended this restaurant to our friends that we were hosting and I spent most of the meal apologising for the embarrassment for such an unpleasant experience.

As a word for advice for the future, if a customer orders something incorrectly, arguing with them about whether or not they should have known how it is served is not something that encourages repeat visits. I understand every restaurant has a bottom line and doesn’t want to waste food - again, I’ve done this job, I know it back to front, I know how frustrating it can be when mistakes are made or waste happens. But stating that the menu clearly explains how a dish is served, when simply reading the description can disprove this statement in a second, is honestly just...

Our first mistake on arriving at Prezzo in Canterbury for lunch today was to ask for a table. The waitress was clearly having a bad day and the last thing she needed was to have a party of seven adults and two toddlers taking up space when there was the very real prospect of other customers coming into the restaurant as well.

Despite our audacity, she reluctantly found us a table next to the toilets. Her colleague stomped over to take our order. She also appeared to be having a bad day, and seemed most put out that we all wanted to order different things from the menu.

By the time the drinks arrived, other customers had indeed begun to filter in. The waitresses in conjunction with the chefs (who were both having just as bad a day as the waitresses) did a quick bit of mental arithmetic and worked out that the number of customers (quite a few) versus the number of chefs (two) versus the number of pizza ovens (one) meant that some of the customers were going to be waiting a long time for their food.

As we had so thoughtlessly come into their restaurant and asked for a table for seven adults and two toddlers, they decided to give us lots of extra time for conversation while they served the smaller, politer, tables first. Tables with the good manners to arrive in twos or fours and not bring children with them perhaps.

Barely an hour passed before our starters arrived. We all agreed that the food was very nice, and we had plenty of time to discuss it in the aeons that followed before the main course got to us. The dads got the chance to people-watch as other tables came, finished and left, while the mums took the opportunity to do a bit of shopping on the high street – which was just as well as the toddlers were climbing the walls by this point.

Unfortunately, by the time the main course did reach the table, the ravages of time and the onset of senility since the order was placed meant that nobody could remember what they asked for. We upset the waitress (whose day was getting worse with every passing second) by asking her to identify which dish was which - a request we now realise was hopelessly over-optimistic. We then upset the chefs by asking them to put chicken in the chicken pasta.

After over two hours of sitting around chewing on crayons, the toddlers were in no mood to allow their parents to eat so we promptly gave up and upset the waitresses again by asking them to pack the food to go.

We should take this opportunity to apologise to the waitress for wanting to split the bill three ways and each pay on card. Perhaps that was why the card machine didn’t work. Either way, the waitress made it very clear that the terrible day she was having was in no small way our fault.

In conclusion, the food we had in Prezzo (or at least the food we had later that Prezzo had prepared for us) was very nice. It’s amazing the staff were as friendly as they were, given the awful day they were all having and after our rudeness for turning up in the first place. We can only apologise for our unrealistic expectations that going for an early Sunday lunch would take less than two and a half hours.

It is clear that Prezzo in Canterbury needs fewer customers as they made it very obvious that us darkening their doorstop was a huge inconvenience. We thank them for their herculean efforts in putting up with us, and promise not to...

Having had great experiences in other Prezzo's we were delighted to have found this one in Canterbury, it made our decision as to where to eat easy... HOW WRONG WERE WE!!

We were sat outside under the umbrella which was lovely. The staff were pleasant too.

So, being a little bit fussy with a delicate tummy, although I knew what I wanted and having had my order amended slightly in other Prezzo's I wanted to make sure they could accommodate my request here.

When the waitress came over I enquired into whether the 'Crab & Lobster Ravioli with King Prawns' could be served without the spice. (I explained I could not eat it otherwise) she went away saying if it was a problem she would be back.

Our jug of water was brought out in the meantime; and we were surprised by the amount of water stains present, it looked a little grubby.

The next time the waitress appeared was with our meals. I was super eager to start, as having had this recently I can honestly say; AN AMAZING MEAL. To my surprise the meal was full of spice.... my mouth was on fire.

The other meal was the 'Oak-Smoked Salmon Penne', the description stated oak smoked Salmon fillets, filletS being plural.. but you would be lucky to find any Salmon and what was there was merely small shredded pieces, not what we had in mind from the description. The portion size was rather shocking too.. considering this was not within the 'Prefect for Lunch' section, it was pitiful and not worth the £15.50 .

Back to my Ravioli.. I was told that it was not possible for the spice to be removed and told that it was impossible that another Prezzo could have served me the dish without it.. I did not appreciate the fact I was made to feel like a liar. Furthermore, if they knew this why did they not return for me to order an alternative in the first instance.

I could not eat any of my meal, and too be honest the experience made me lose my appetite. The only positive was we did not have to pay for it.

So, so, so disappointed.. how can a chain (Prezzo) go from amazing to...