Marco's New York Italian — Restaurant in England

Very disappointing. Had booked a table for two online as it was my 65th birthday. The food was okay, but the service was shocking. Right from the outset I wasn’t happy with the way we were treated. When booking online, I had asked to be seated at a table with the bench type seat as I have some mobility problems. We were shown to a table with chairs that I would have been uncomfortable in. Obviously no one had read my request. We did get shown to a more suitable table and a bottle of water and menus were provided.

We then put on our invisibility cloaks on as no one came near us for a good ten minutes. Other customers had come in. They were shown to the bench type seats immediately and quickly served with drinks.

Finally a server came over and asked for our food order. I explained we hadn’t even been asked for our drinks order yet. We ended up ordering drinks and food at the same time due to the long delay. Unfortunately our shared starter arrived before the drinks. Had to point this out again. Only after that were our drinks finally served.

I had ordered a bottle of Chianti. This turned up already opened. I told our server I would have expected this to be opened at the table. She said the younger members of staff struggled to use a corkscrew so they often opened them away from the table. Incredible. Also the wine wasn’t served at room temperature. It was far too cold.

Steaks arrived. We had to call the server back as we were not given steak knives. My steak was ok. My brother did enjoy his ribeye and said the peppercorn sauce was amongst the best he had ever had. But to be honest I had expected something a little better. Fortunately there was 50% off all main meals.

At no time did anyone come over to ask how our meal was. We had to call our server over to order a dessert and again later to order more drinks. I got the cheesecake. The fruit with it was nice and fresh but the cheesecake, to me, was very bland.

My brother enjoyed his Irish coffee. Just as well as it cost over £12. I was enjoying an after dinner liquor when the staff started clearing and cleaning tables around us getting them ready for the mornings breakfast. It was approximately 8.30pm.

We asked for the bill. £124.95. A server returned not long after with a card reader seeking payment. I explained I wanted to pay up at the front counter at the entrance as I had £110 of vouchers and I also wished to speak to the manager. Codes were on my phone. I asked if they accepted cash as I wished to pay the balance this way. She confirmed they did.

A few minutes later the manager, Jordan, appeared at our table with yet another card reader. I pointed out my disappointment with the service. He said due to the delay in serving the drinks he had knocked £8 off. It wasn’t showing on the bill. I also explained we nearly always tipped when we went out for a meal. We would pay the 10% service charge but if we had been tipping we would not have left anything as the service had been that bad. He said he would go and knock the service charge off and apply the discount on the wine. He took the details of the vouchers I had to the value of £110. The revised bill came to £105.59. Only later did I realise this meant we didn’t actually get the full discount as we had £4.41 more in the vouchers we had presented. Fair enough you don’t get that discount on vouchers but it added to my annoyance with the whole dining experience.

Overall a massive disappointment. The establishment had been made aware it was my 65th birthday in my e mail booking and when I signed up to purchase the vouchers. Not a single member of staff seemed to be aware of this. I was expecting a much better dining experience. Food was ok but I’ve had better and paid less. Without the 50% off the mains we would have been looking at over £150. One shared starter, 2 steaks, 2 sides, 1 dessert, 1 bottle of wine and 4 drinks. Very expensive for what we had. But it was the service which really let it down. Based on this experience we cannot recommend this establishment nor will we...

We went to Pierre Marco Whites restaurant “Marco’s” in Blackpool today (Sat 2pm) for an (overly pricey-for-what-it-was) afternoon tea for 3 for a special occasion. HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT!!! I would have thought there would be many more people there at that time on a Sat….There was no parking at the hotel/restaurant, however there was cheap parking in the vicinity. The restaurant was clean and well presented. The bathroom was extremely clean and smelled amazing!! There was a table that ordered food and when it came out it looked and smelled really good, but we overheard them saying the quality of the meat was not great. Our server explained how the afternoon tea worked. We said we had 1 vegetarian and was told we couldn’t have the veggie sandwiches as we hadn’t ordered that in advance. We had made the reservation online. Firstly, there was no option TO request any dietary choices. Secondly, what kind of chef can’t make vegetarian sandwiches? Our server said we could have the egg, and the cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches as our vegetarian options. When the afternoon tea came out, the cucumber sandwiches must have been made in advance as they were wet through! Our server brought fresh cucumber sandwiches out and we didn’t have to wait too long. For the other 2 people we had requested no beef and no ham sandwiches. We got 1 salmon and cream cheese sandwich (not 1 each) and no tuna sandwich at all. The scones had been in the microwave and were so rock-hard we couldn’t cut them. They were also replaced. Our server had said to call him over to open the jam as they were really hard to open. They were almost impossible!! There was a selection of 3 cakes and a macaron each. The carrot cake had a terribly grainy texture. The chocolate cake had no taste at all. We didn’t try the 3rd one. The macaron was great! We started with a round of lemonade (plain, strawberry and rhubarb) and ended with a round of tea. They were the best bits of the afternoon tea. Sorry Pierre, we WONT be coming back any time soon!

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I’d been looking forward to trying this restaurant and had high hopes for it. First impressions the restaurant is beautiful. When we arrived it was less than half full (even though the online booking said it was fully booked and for the 1.5 hrs we were there it didn’t fill up).

It’s guaranteed when I eat out I always get the worst table and this was no exception, close to the front door, next to the waiting staff station and the kitchen, and positioned so we could hear the music from the bar next door and from the main restaurant which was a bit unsettling. As the restaurant got busier (but not full as 4 tables next to us were never occupied) it was like sitting in a corridor with people wizzing past. The menus are cheap folded paper print outs which look like the copier ran out of ink.

Drinks came and my Prosecco looked like a short measure but only confirmed it after the second one came with the addition of a strawberry and a fuller glass. My husband has the ribeye steak which was cooked well and tasty so they get points for that but the carbonara was bland to say the least even with the addition of salt and pepper it tasted of nothing. When I mentioned it at the end of the meal the host said I should have mentioned it and they would have exchanged it for something else (however a 20 min wait would have meant my husband would have finished by the time I got mine) I was told they would have taken both meals away and re served (would they waste a £40 rib eye?? Or would he just get it back? Not sure how that would work) anyway we got a free drink as compensation and comments passed to the kitchen.

The bill (including service charge) was around £85 and when given £100 we were asked ‘would you like your change?’ Yes I bloody would!!!! Very presumptive that we would tip an extra £15 on top of the service charge.

Overall other than looking great and reasonable attentive staff there are better (and cheaper) restaurants in Blackpool, I’m gutted it’s not as good as it could be, maybe it will be...