Il Basilico — Restaurant in England

I don't normally write reviews, but dietary requirements is not a joke. I become very sickly if i eat onions or mushrooms. I asked if the onions could be removed from the simple Bruschetta starter. The answer was NO. I asked if mushrooms could be removed from a pasta dish and replaced with garden peas. Again, no peas. This was a suprise; being an italian restaurant!! When I was given the dessert menu, the waitress said quite patronisingly, there are no onions or mushrooms in this menu. How rude. It is important to cater for all dietary requirements without being rude. I felt compelled to support local businesses, but in future, I will travel to St. Albans where staff know the values of service and repeat business and are more than happy to cater for the needs of their customers. Food - Average.

UPDATe- Managers Response. I was not asked about any dietary requirements when I was sat at my table. We were asked if we wanted drinks. I always mention my issue with onions and mushrooms immediately when I order food. I was told the onions are include and cut up really fine, and could not be picked out, but from a customers point of view its just chopped tomatoes and a few herbs. They could have made one with no onions. It wasn't that busy. I did settle for garlic bread, but thats just it settle. The mains I asked if mushrooms could be replaced with peas or broccoli. You didn't have any, only Asparagus. If you had green beans I would have accepted that. My friend was also very surprised, so I can get him to write a review as well if this helps. There was no laughter from me after the comment. My friend laughed and I responded in an annoyed sarcastic voice.

My friend liked his meal and left a tip and I didnt want to make a scene as it was a treat for him. Garlic bread with cheese is easy. I left some of my Cabonara as it was very rich and over powering. Brownie and ice cream was good. My friend believed the panacota to be a little runny. Oh and by the way your waitress was going to charge me only £36 for a £63 meal, which was what I believed it was worth, but noted her mistake and pointed it out as I am very honest person. You need to up your game or you wont survive these...

We dined at il Basilico as a family for the first time tonight, as an early mothers day treat for my mother and my wife. The service from Holly and Nico was second to none and they were very attentive to our every need, which is indicative of good Italian hospitality. The background music and lit candles on the tables set the tone for a lovely soporific atmosphere within this charming Italian restaurant. The food here is very authentic and the portion size is very generous to say the least. To say you won't go hungry here is an understatement, a hearty appetite is certainly needed. There is plenty of seafood on the menu if your a seafood lover, however this is not to say that the menu doesnt cater for other Italian favourites like lasagna and pizza alike. We ordered a number of starters the mussels (Cozza Alla Marinara) were a real treat and the tomato sauce had just the right amount of background heat from the chilli, this was accompanied with home made house bread which was delicious. My mum ordered the king prawns in white wine and garlic (Gamberoni Sicilia), and the prawns were cooked perfectly. My wife ordered the Brushetta Al Pomodor and my son ordered the Tomato, Basil, and Buffalo Mozzarella. Every one of our starters were delicious, cooked perfectly and seasoned beautifully. For my main course I ordered the mixed seafood spaghetti (spaghetti de pescatdore) my wife ordered the lasagna my son ordered the pepperoni pizza and my mum ordered the Tagliatelle Alla Trevisana. Our food was faultless and fulfilled my expectations. Compliments to Alex the chef. Everything about the evening was relaxed without feeling rushed or under pressure to order quickly. The restaurant certainly had a warm and healthy buzz which I can only put down to the relaxed and friendly service given to us by Holly and Nico. The prices here are very reasonable too. We are very fortunate to have many great restaurants in Bedford and this certainly ranks alongside with the best of them. Please keep doing what your doing. Thanks for a great evening, we'll...

I don’t often write restaurant reviews, but I felt compelled to shine a light on how dreadful this restaurant is. Perhaps normal for Bedford, but the first thing I was told when I walked through the door of this restaurant at 8:45pm was that the kitchen was closing in 15 minutes. Although I understand the pressures of second guessing the flow of customers each night, I think 9pm is way too early to be shutting down your kitchen (especially on a bank holiday weekend) and immediately it put an unwanted pressure on the evening. The decor seemed miss-matched, badly thought through and budget, but I would happily look through this if the food wasn’t so appalling.

Carbonara, pizza and bruschetta was the order - fairly standard in your normal Italian restaurant, however Il Basilico seemed to ruin even the most basic of this much loved cuisine. The bruschetta was laden with bland, under seasoned tomatoes on a single piece of soggy bread. The carbonara featured some pale looking bacon which was slathered in more cream than pasta, but perhaps most worryingly was so hot that one of us is still struggling with a sore tongue two days later. Not only does this present a health risk, but there is absolutely no reason a carbonara should be so hot, the only explanation is the chef was too lazy to avoid sticking it in the microwave - the Italians would be insulted by the state of this dish. The pizza was perhaps the only edible item on the table, but our taste buds were too damaged to truly enjoy it.

This restaurant needs to take a hard look at its menu if it is to succeed - lazy chefs, poor customer experience and lack of authenticity is not...