ASK Italian - Shrewsbury — Restaurant in England

We ate at Ask Shrewsbury.. The food was excellent, although we had to wait a long time between courses! That however, wasn't our main concern, the experience of going out for a meal on a Friday evening was marred by very poor service! The waitress was NOT engaging, she was lazy and appeared to do very little for us to make a positive comment about. On arrival at the restaurant which was NOT busy, we were directed to order via the app, fine however, the waitress could have used this time to engage. Our starters came and two dishes were incorrect, they were changed fairly swiftly and then we waited near on an hour before our mains were brought to the table, the only problem was that the starters plates etc had not been cleared and taken away, we had subsequently ordered more drinks also on the app therefore our table was full of empty and dirty plates, glasses, bottles etc. My husband then waited in excess of several minutes for some clean cutlery to start eating his main course. He was only brought a pizza cutter to eat a Calzone! The waitress seamed perplexed that he had requested a knife and fork. Plates and bottles were cleared around our mains being squashed onto the table. (There were five adults in our party) On ordering desserts on the app the waitress did return to our table to say there was NO Etna Bomb! and could we order something else, we asked if anything else was out of stock, she shrugged saying she had no idea!. The only time she became animated, slightly interested or attentive was at the time of us asking for the bill. We informed her that we had some TESCO Clubcard vouchers to use, which she did unduly deal with to enable the bill to show the deduction. I'm afraid we did not leave a gratuity because we felt that our experience had been marred by very poor service, the waitresses face was a picture as we left, almost showing her disbelief that we should dare not to leave a tip. The fact that we'd spent £174 on food and drink, we felt was more than enough to pay given the level of service we'd received. The food we have to say was extremely good, the kitchen staff did not stop all night however, the amount of food they were cooking was to fulfill the constant stream of Deliveroo and Just Eat couriers! We have usually always had a very good experience at this particular restaurant, but I'm afraid we're not likely to return anytime soon if this is the service you can expect, which is...

So upon arrival to the restaurant, we were not given a choice of tables. Our original waitress was very good but it was explained to us that the restaurant was missing around a third of their desserts. There was quite a delay in our table being cleared from starters and mains. During the mains there was no check back to which I would have informed the staff that the pasta was overcooked. When it came to the bill, our tastecard was refused to which there was no imformation anywhere in the store. The duty manager kept us waiting for an extended amount of time for proof of this as nothing was stated on their website, or on the fineprint on their menu. The duty manager finally returned with a screenshot on his phone - not really adequate in my opinion. Furthermore, the duty manager lacked any standard complaint handling skills and came across very obstinate to the point of rudeness. We only ever come here for a cheap spur of the moment meal and if I knew this from the start, I would have gone somewhere else with better food quality. Lastly when I called to book I was told they were closing early due to staff shortages (which is totally fine and I understand in these trying times) but were told the latest we could book a table was 17:00 even though all the way through our meal the staff were seating people upto the time we left at 18:30, 30 minutes before the proposed closure time. Overall, the experience left us with a very sour taste in our mouths after a decidedly...

We visited the Shrewsbury ASK Italian 02/10/2021, the food was lovely however service was very disappointing and disorganised. We ordered a children's 3 set meal, Two adult starters and two adult mains plus drinks.

The two adult starters came out perfect but instead of a bringing my sons starter aswell they just brought his main and no starter. I asked a member of staff if we could have it which she said yes so we waited another 15mins before asking another member of staff who got one for us in no time... however by this point our chicken lecca lecca had gone cold.

We then had to re-order our mains as the girl who took our order hadn't put on the computer and I had to request a fresh kids spaghetti bol as they was going to give him the one that sat on the table for 15 minutes beforehand and the left out the back for a further 30mins... by this point my toddler had had enough as we had been there over an hour and still only had starters so we had to leave our mains but still paid and my son was never offered his pudding before we left.

I have no problem in paying higher prices for good food and service but £54 for what we experienced today never again we will go else where in Shrewsbury now and maybe eat at a different ASK Italian if further...