La Mamma — Restaurant in England

As a long standing customer of La Mamma, Christchurch, I must say that the new business has unfortunately run the reputable “La Mumma’s” into the ground. The customer service was DIRE.

The gentleman at the front of house is wonderful, charming and polite. Unfortunately, the supposed “manager” Bridie has absolutely zero customer service skills. She made an assumption at one of our guests meals and stated she was “trying to save him money”, when in fact, this was not requested by ourselves. Bridie made the assumption that our guest would like ANCHOVIES in his calzone. He was none the wiser when this arrived (due to the nature of a calzone). When he had taken a bite, a strong fish taste overtook his mouth. We immediately called for Bridie, who then told our guest “you didn’t say you didn’t want them [anchovies]”. When ordering, our guest had very clearly stated what he wanted inside his calzone- NOT listing anchovies. Bridie then went on to say “You can just pick them out” and walked away. Again, we stated our guest was not happy, to then be told by the WONDERFUL Bridie that “It’s not the end of the world”.

Our guest left over half of the meal, as had tried to pick out the fish, as directed by the so called manager, but couldn’t bear the overpowering taste. We were told there was a long wait if he wanted something else, so he ended up having to share meals with the rest of our party. Absolutely disgusting customer service from Bridie. The others were wonderful and the food, very nice.

When the bill arrived, the calzone was still on there, at full price, with the unbelievable addition of almost £20 service charge… This was questioned and Bridie said “I am not taking the meal off”, proceeding to say she was “joking” about picking the anchovies out. I told her that she had been extremely rude and that whilst she wasn’t happy to remove the meal, she was more than happy to add service charge to the bill- which we actually paid! Bridie then begun to make accusations that our party had been swearing- at no point was this raised to myself or my party. If this was the case, and issue, surely this would have been challenged.

We left cash on the table, to be told by Bridie to bring the money to her, at the front of the restaurant. She was told that she could retrieve this herself and her own comment of “it’s not the end of the world” was returned to her, which of course, she found very polite! We left at this point, as Bridie’s rudeness continued.

To say that our group left disappointed would be an understatement. I can only feel deep sadness for the future of the business, I will not be returning. Although, Bridie has stated our party would not be welcome back. It’s a shame, as we have been La Mamma customers for years. John (previous owner) and family were always delightful and their restaurant a...

La Mamma it is not...... Beware of the unadvertised 10% service charge!

I know prices have gone up and that we had booked for a Saturday night, in particular the Saturday night closest to Valentine's day so some may say I'm being overly critical however this is not the La Mamma's experience we have known from before.

Our party of 7 arrived, having booked the table over a month ago, to be shown to a booth table that would normally seat 4 with an extra chair plonk on the end directly in walk way. The other tables identical to this in the same section only had 4 people on each of them. We squeezed in with me taking the spare chair and we just about fit - I'm guessing they had over booked and as we were the last booking of the night, we were just dumped in the corner. We considered talking to the manager but as it was full, there wouldn't be anything to gain so just made the best of the situation - I mean, what else could you do at 2030 on a Saturday night?

We ordered and food came fairly quickly despite being busy. Sadly two of the starter had to be returned as they were cold and when we reached the main course, one persons meal was completely missed. When the missing meal arrived, it really wasn't worth the wait as it looked like he had only been given half a butterflied chicken breast. Deserts were ok but there was a distinct lack of honeycomb on/in the honeycomb cheesecake.

To be fair to the lady serving us, she could see we weren't impressed and offered us free glasses of wine which a couple of people accepted.

The biggest shock was the 10% service charge added to the bill which was not on any signs around the restaurant or on the menu. I don't have an issue with a mandatory charge but you should be told it will be automatically added to your bill at some point before you order. The bill at the end didn't reflect the quality or quantity of the meal we had tonight.

All in all, I left unsatisfied and with back ache (I spent the meal bent over to reach the table as the lack of leg room prevented me for pulling myself up to the table). I think it's fair to say noone in our party will be in a rush to go back...

I want to start off by saying that the FOH staff are amazing and were so friendly, helpful and attentive, and there’s a good atmosphere in there!

That being said, I felt like the food was very overpriced for what it was-maybe we picked the wrong dishes but they were just pretty standard and the pizza was especially disappointing. Nothing like the kind of authentic Italian pizza you’d expect for the price, and to be honest just looked like a frozen supermarket one. The pasta was nice enough but again, very expensive for quite a basic dish which didn’t necessarily have any kind of special kick or rich flavour to it.

It is perhaps just that the restaurant is more catered to meat and seafood dishes as they did look more impressive but for a pizza/pasta place I hate to say it but I was underwhelmed.

Again, want to reiterate that you’d probably have a great family meal here. In terms of food, however, though it’s nice enough it could be a lot better. Could do with some vegan options too-literally one pasta with plain tomato sauce and potentially a salad was all that...