La Salute - Italian Restaurant Aylesbury — Restaurant in England

AVOID if you want to be treated like human beings!

Friday just gone, my boyfriend and I were visiting Aylesbury for the night and he had booked a meal here for the 2 of us… our reservation was booked for 7:30pm. He had received the text to confirm this.

We arrived bang on time for our reservation and were met with a very friendly waiter who scoured the list for our booking. Although the name was spelt wrong, our reservation WAS on the list. Due to how busy it seemed, we were told our table would be ready in 5 minutes (they were just waiting for 2 ladies to leave so we could have their table) and as the restaurant was quite small, we were asked to leave and come back in those 5 minutes which of course we obliged as we understand that on a Friday night, things can get very busy! The first red flag we noticed was that straight after we’d left, another couple entered and were seated immediately on a table of four that we’d seen (who I presume was the manager of the restaurant cleaning) just as we were being told to leave and come back.

We hung around outside for around 10 minutes and then decide to take a seat slightly up the street in view of the restaurant door with intentions to go back when we saw people leave. Approximately 10-15 minutes later, we are still waiting but then noticed another couple walk in so decided to head in ourselves at the hope that we would now be able to get seated considering it was now 20:00 and our reservation was for 19:30.

As we walk in, the two people we’d just seen walk in are waiting to be seen to whilst the two ladies whose table we were told we’d be given are getting up to go. The same waiter we had spoken to cleans and sets up this table, looks us dead in the eyes and proceeds to give this table to the other couple even though he knew we had a booking and had been waiting over half an hour now! He assures us that another table will be ready for us in 5 minutes so we wait those 5 minutes… again, stood in this very small restaurant where the rest of the guests are probably wondering what on earth we’re doing. We watch the waiter rush around, looking as if he was trying to find us a table but then who I presume was the manager proceeded to pull the dirtiest look at the two of us and tell him ‘no’ whilst shaking his finger. We had done absolutely nothing other than what we’d been asked to with a smile on our face but at this point we’d been made to feel so unwelcome and decided to go elsewhere.

What is the point of having a booking system if you’re not going to run by it? And it really seems that the people running the place have very poor customer service skills. It’s a real shame because this looked to be a...

Don’t waste your time here unless you enjoy poor standards.

The service was mostly poor - Not once were we asked how the food was whilst we were eating, so we couldn’t even ask for salt and pepper as they weren’t weren’t originally placed on our table, in an Italian restaurant. Bizarre. The young waitress was friendly, however.

The shared olives were the worst we’ve ever tasted, not fresh and were almost inedible

The Mushroom starter tasted good, albeit slightly burnt, and was served in a dish that was cracked around one of the edges; It wasn’t busy when we were eating so they surely weren’t running low on crockery.

Music - It was too loud and uncomfortable, and felt like we were sat in a bar. I also couldn’t understand why they were playing what sounded like Eurovision Song Contest as opposed to more ambient music, which would have been more enjoyable.

Mains - Both pizzas ordered arrived with either very little, or no tomato, which is strange considering they were both labelled as having tomato on the menu. This is the first Italian restaurant that I’ve been to where I’ve ended up craving tomato after leaving.

I wanted to complain at the end, but it seemed pointless as it seems like the supervisors/management couldn’t...

I want to start by saying that the food here is absolutely delicious, and is some of the nicest Italian food I’ve had in a while. The food arrived hot, and they were great at custom making me a dairy free pepperoni pizza. The starters and the mains are very large. I would recommend sharing a starter between three / four. The wine is also nice. The staff were also friendly. However, we booked a reservation in for 8pm, and then had to stand outside for about 15 minutes, waiting for a table. Once we got in, the drinks arrived relatively quickly, but the starter and then the mains took a considerable amount of time to arrive. We also had to ask repeatedly for tap water, and then tap water refills. The prices here are good value, and we paid just over £80 for four pizzas, two starters, a Diet Coke and a bottle of wine. I thought this was very reasonable. Its quite compact inside, but there’s no music, so I could hear my conversation which was welcome. I would come back here for sure, but perhaps not on a weekend as the service was a bit slow and they were inundated with...