Gambero D'oro Benfleet — Restaurant in Castle Point

Update 24/8/22: Pleased to say our weekday lunch visit was fantastic. Quick, efficient service and delicious food. Calamari was freshly cooked and garlic bread/pizza/pasta dishes were very tasty and generously proportioned. Also impressed that despite costs across the board increasing they've managed to keep their 2-course lunch to £12. Only very minor complaint was attention to detail on my mussel linguine, where one shell hadn't opened but had not been removed from dish. Otherwise very pleased with our lunch.

Update 20/3/16: Returned on a Sunday evening for a meal for two, and pleased to say experience was vastly improved. There were only two other couples in the restaurant, and we were served quickly and service was extremely friendly and attentive throughout. The garlic bread and pizza were well cooked showing they had obviously gotten the hang of the oven compared to the anaemic offerings we were given on the first visit. My seafood pasta was loaded with seafood this time, and served hot and tasty with perfectly done pasta. All in all, a great improvement and somewhere I'd be now happy to return - although would like to see if the service and food quality is kept as high during busy periods. On the basis of this visit alone I would have awarded 4, but given previous visit and the caveat of it being so quiet I'm only upgrading my rating from 2 to 3*.

Original review (Feb 2016): Visited about a week after opening, and really wanted to like this place. It may improve as the team gets up to speed but in my visit the service was pretty atrocious. It took almost 20 minutes for someone to take our drink order, a very long wait between courses as well as waiting ages for dishes to be cleared etc. It's only a small place and there seemed to be enough staff so not entirely sure why it was so bad. Our calamari starter was unfortunately very rubbery, and the pizza and pasta mains we had were just OK. The place seemed quite confused also - not entirely sure what the artwork was trying to say, and the signage, decor and price seemed to contradict one another with it being priced higher than the quality warrants. I sincerely hope things improve, but you may want to give out a few weeks...

Its been a while since we have been here, but chose this place for my daughters birthday meal. When we entered the place was not very busy, but had a lovely atmosphere, with music being gently played and the staff were friendly and polite. Food was excellent and very good portions on all the plates. However, before we had had a main meal, a large group came in with lots of children, probably about 20 in total. I appreciate children cry and get restless etc. but the parents had zero control over them, the parents themselves were extremly loud and completely drowned out any music and prevented our group and other diners from being able to relax and enjoy our meals. One child which was sitting close to our table was being allowed to watch an ipad at full volume, which the staff should have politly said something about. Disappointed with how the staff failed to address this noisey group and ruined what had started so well. This is not a complaint about the restraurant of such, but staff should have addressed this instead of turning a blind eye. We wanted to stay for longer and have a few more drinks, but this did force us to leave early. I appreciate places can get loud, but this was over the top. Would have given 5 stars if this group had been approached...

We came here as a party of 12 on Father's Day. The food was very good indeed and portions are sizeable. Staff were very accommodating and the service really was exemplary. This place is actually a little gem in my opinion. There's also a good family atmosphere here, which gives the place a nice buzz without being overbearing. The restaurant also affords some lovely views over open countryside, which adds to the experience of eating here. It's a shame there isn't a bit more parking, but that should not deter anyone from going here - there are pay and display car parks nearby. Definitely...