Dead Wax Social — Restaurant in England

We had reserved a table for 9 on the Saturday evening of the sunny May Bank Holiday weekend, so perhaps we should give them the benefit of the doubt as other reviews seem to be very good. My husband and I weren't that hungry after eating lots at the Foodie Festival earlier in the day and as there wasn't really anything on the menu to tempt me enough to order a main meal, we both just ordered the cheese and biscuits from the dessert menu. We did think about ordering one between us - thank goodness we didn't! £7.50 for 3 small wedges of cheese, a few grapes, a few crackers and a dollop of chutney. I suppose it was never going to be a big portion, but at least the cheese could have been better quality - the cheddar was totally bland and tasteless, perhaps something you'd use to grate and bake on top of something but not worthy of a cheeseboard. The steak that several of the group wanted to order was sold out but we weren't told of that until they actually came to order - it would have been useful to know from the outset so they could consider the other options in advance. The steaks they did end up getting turned out to be generous in size, but tough and chewy so not particularly enjoyable. The Malbec we shared was thin and vinegary. On a positive note, one of our daughters had the margarita pizza which was huge and she really enjoyed it, despite not being able to finish the whole thing. The other had the fish and chips from the children's menu - nice portion of crispy battered fish and plenty of chips, both of which were polished off very easily. As she doesn't like mushy peas, we'd asked for regular peas instead but they didn't have any! So when offered carrots she was happy to go with those but what she actually got were the pickled carrots that they use on another of the adult main dishes! We didn't realise until she started complaining that they tasted funny and she didn't want them - this was unusual for her as she is very good with her vegetables, so we both tasted them and instantly got the hit of vinegar. They were really quite unpleasant - certainly not suitable for a child's meal but I wouldn't have wanted them either. Overall it was just ok, a bit disappointing but I'm quite glad I didn't go in feeling ravenous. I doubt we'd go again, although the vegan supper offer does sound...

Booked this for a valentines dinner as it looked really cool, we arrived and nobody showed us to our table, gave us menus or talked to us, we just had to find our table. As basically nobody acknowledged us, we had to ask at the bar how to order food to which she replied how she was busy despite there literally being 3 tables but then said it was fine because we booked which was odd. There was a ridiculous amount of smoke, me and my boyfriend had to move tables because of how much it stung our eyes and continued to after we left. We then ordered at the bar at 8:30 and waited until 9:30 for our starter to arrive, at this point we were literally the only table, and then our pizzas a few minutes after. Not to mention she was talking to her friend who didn't seem to work there the whole time and seemed to not care at all about actually cooking our pizzas after and hour of waiting. The chef put my boyfriends pizza down and said "it's burnt but only on the crust" which was an understatement, it was pretty much burnt through. But to put it down after burning it and to not ask if he wanted it remade or a "sorry" or literally anything is actually unbelievable. There was also no mention of how we'd be waiting for an hour in a place with one table waiting on food, as they closed taking orders a while before then, not "sorry for the wait" or anything. We also didn't receive a checkback from anyone on our food or literally anything as we left from anyone. It was genuinely the worst service I've ever received, genuinely such a waste of £35, he only finished his pizza because we were so hungry but genuinely felt sick after from how burnt it was. Genuinely appalling and I never...

Every restaurant has a bad day, and unfortunately for us Bella Italia's bad day was today. From what we could understand from our server, the main chef hadn't turned up and it was down to another chef who was quite new to handle all the orders. It turned out that he couldn't handle it, and quite a few people started complaining that their food was taking ages to turn up. After we had our starters, we too were waiting ages for our main meal. I think we waited probably an hour for the food to arrive. The servers were turning away people from the restaurant despite it being half full. It was obvious that there was clearly a problem downstairs.

To give our server credit, he did let us know and when our food did eventually arrive it was very good. I had the pizza with spicy pepperoni, ham, mushrooms and artichokes which was good. The calamari starter was great too. Overall, the wait wasn't great at all and there was obviously a serious problem in the kitchen. When it came to pay the bill, our server apologised again for the incovenience and said he'd given us a managers discount. I was expecting 10 maybe 20% off. Well, he took nearly £40 off a £50 bill so we ended up paying less than a tenner for 3 people.

So, while we did have to wait a long time for the food, the staff there did handle it well undoubtdely. It wouldn't put me off from returning, as we obviously caught them on a bad day but it is worth noting that Donatello's just down the road do equally nice Italian...