Misto — Restaurant in England

Fantastic Food and a lovely atmosphere - we ate here on July 4th 2020...the first day hospitality was reopened after COVID19 lockdown. Misto was booked in advance as part of a short weekend break in Ambleside in the Lakes. We arrived in the evening and the restaurant was suitably planned for social distancing and well rehearsed serving routine to ensure safety of the customer but done in a subtle way that made eating out again as normal and enjoyable as possible. Many thanks to the staff and wonderful food we ate...no compromise on quality...brilliant.

Update May 2021

Dissapointingly Misto now only accepts ad-hoc passing trade on a first come first served basis and will not accept table reservations. Not ideal when planning a week in Ambleside and want the security of a booked evening meal. I'm afraid we 'chanced' our luck to get a table at Misto one evening and told there was over an hour and half wait. We luckily managed to get in another fantastic restaurant and have now deleted Misto from our options. So unfortunately it is unlikely we will ever go back to Misto due to their new policy of first come first served and not being able to rely on a booking. Bizarre policy, considering that the combination of both traditional bookings AND accepting passing ad-hoc customers seems to work for all the other very busy restaurants in Ambleside ?? Misto does not seem to want to build repeat customer relationships and reservations and it...

Hmm.

It was okay.

Mozzarella and tomatoes for starter. Weirdly it came.on a bed of rocket with CHERRY tomatoes. Had this dish many times and never had cherry tomatoes before served with it. The mozzarella was superb but because.of the unusual flavour of the tomatoes it wasn't great, and nowhere near the nine pounds price point.

Main was chicken in a panko-type coating with the chicken beaten flat like an escalope. The chicken was not very flat and the coating just fell off. When pressing the fork into the escalope the fat was dripping off. Again, tasted okay but not great. Tasted like it was deep fried so the chicken was both greasy and dry simultaneously.

My opinion is this is a typical tourist restaurant where the price is high and the quality is not quite a match, although I'm happy to concede I could have been unlucky. .

Maybe we were just unlucky as it has a high rating on Google, and my wife enjoyed her meal greatly.

The staff were awesome. Very accommodating, friendly, and service was fast.

The venue itself is very accessible, well decorated and quite comfortable, situated in the middle of Ambleside.

I'd certainly give it a second go just based on the great customer service.

Number of views...

Visited Misto for lunch and had a very disappointing experience. Despite arriving before other customers, the staff prioritized clearing tables and serving those who came in after us. We weren’t greeted or offered a menu—we had to go and ask for one ourselves. Even after serving others, the staff continued cleaning instead of taking our order. It genuinely felt like we were being deliberately ignored, which raises concerns about possible racial discrimination. This kind of treatment is unacceptable, and we won’t be returning. Eventually, we left after waiting outside with no service or recognition. We ended up going to the Thai restaurant across the street and had an incredible meal with warm, welcoming service—so thank you to the staff member at Misto especially the one who kept looking at us as she cleared the tables because obviously she has better things to do than serve two non white customers. We ended up having a great lunch elsewhere and didn’t have to sit through what felt like a racially charged snub. We won’t...