Ristorante Fratelli — Restaurant in England

(the good reveiws must be freinds/family of fratellis staff, surley?)

the inside looks pretty flashy and clean and the staff were nice and we didnt have to wait too long for food. at a table for 5 we got... !!microwaved!! ravioli (meat pocket things) starter, some pieces were hot as hell and others stone cold, the flavours and texture were ok but.. a microwave? (with that alone ill never return) potato skins were nice. pizza: leather like crust cooked hours ago. dry chicken infact dry all together, served at room temp. steak: when a chef gets a steak wrong you know your in for a bad time. its so easy to do steak. anyway, asked for m.rare, it was raw. RAW! it had been cooked for maybe 10-20 seconds on each side. the fries i liked but i couldnt tell the difference between them and mcdonalds fries, i swear theyre mcfries. theyre certainly too uniform to be fresh cut. i expect theyre processed potato too. ive saved the worst til last... the carbonara: (a dish so easy that even the supermarkets get it right) imagine you were served carbonara at a restaurant but instead of the white sauce or egg the tagliatelle/spagetti was drenched in thick flavourless cooking oil, without exaggerating the sauce was 90% OIL 10% carbonara sauce. i should have sent it back. the two fork fulls i had left my mouth and lips greasy i simply could not eat it my body wouldnt allow it. all the meals were left and we are a hungry crew that eat around alot. this was by MIIIIIIIILLES, and im not joking, the worst "food" ive ever paid for from a shop or restaurant.

dont believe me? just go try it. the fact this many things were so dreadful tells me it wasnt a one off blunder by a stressed chef. the place was empty he/she had all the time in the world. the fact is who ever cooks the food there has no idea how to cook. really no idea at all. its harsh but they should be sacked or trained up.

if you want another review the girls who work in sainsburys below the restaurant will tell you the exact same horror stories about the food upstairs. they actually approached me, as was in there getting milk to clean my greasy mouth out, and asked if id been upstairs then described the carbonara exactly as i have.

i cant understand how this place is still open. i doubt it will be much longer unless they get a proper chef/cook.

like i say if you dont believe me, go see...

*IMPORTANT UPDATE - I have no other option but to reduce my review from 5 to 2 star, but to be fair have kept my original review visible for all to see. Please read on for a FULL review of our visits... Our last 2 visits were appalling (hence the 2 star). We put the first negative experience down to a bad day, but unfortunately the 2nd visit was no better. We now no longer dine at this restaurant, which is a shame. Not sure if the chefs or management have changed but service was so bad when we took a couple of our friends a few weeks ago. - Also, all 3 pizzas we ordered were rock hard and burned, and when my wife and I visited a week or so prior to this we were served unusually unseasoned and very bland dishes (something that never happened before). When I questioned this with the waiter he then decided to have an argument with the chef in full view of us, and when I stated he shouldn't have done this he said that he wanted to let the chef know as soon as possible so that other folk's meals weren't ruined!!! VERY embarrassing for both us (the customers) and the poor chef who was pretty fed up at this point. PLEASE let customers leave prior to lambasting your chef, it's not professional at all and we no longer feel comfortable coming back.

NOW FOR MY ORIGINAL 5 STAR REVIEW to keep it fair: We are regulars at Fratelli and put simply it's one of our favourite restaurants in Ponteland...a place you just feel comfortable going back to time and time again and never have a bad experience! Today was another one of those days, in fact we had a 'Superb' lunch! All dishes were served in a timely manner and cooked really well. Fish were our starters of choice and we both had the Tempura Scallops, which were phenomenal....one of the best starters we've ever had! The mains were really good too, and to be honest we both thought this was one of the most enjoyable lunches we've shared out together in a long time. It wouldn't be a review if I didn't point out the pros and cons, so here goes: PROS - Truly flavoursome food, prompt friendly and attentive service, beautiful interior and the chocolate fondant was deliciously more-ish! CONS - Main cod dish portion was a tad small and the green beans were a bit undercooked. Service can sometimes be too attentive, although today it was spot on! We highly recommend giving...

After going to Fratelli’s for years, we have had a very disappointing experience with terrible customer service. We ordered prawns for starters and when the dish arrived, we noticed a hair on one of the prawns. We reported this to staff. They took this away to replace with a fresh starter. Unknown to staff, I had already removed a tail from a prawn before sending this back. However, when the dish returned, one prawn already had its tail removed which we thought was strange. We questioned this with a staff member who said she would raise this but uttered the word “honestly” with an attitude whilst she walked away, and we overheard. A manager then come to apologise but was very defensive. She reassured us that the prawns were fresh although we still had doubts. When we received the bill, we were told that they would remove the “optional” service charge. We mentioned that it was disappointing that the prawns were still on the bill but then was told that they couldn’t remove them as “they already replaced this with fresh prawns, at a cost to the restaurant” which we disputed. We also explained that it was not our fault that they had to make the dish again, in which they said “mistakes happen”. Unbelievably disappointed with the lack of customer service...