The Social Trattoria — Restaurant in England

First time here, came for a meal to celebrate our son’s 18th birthday. Booked a table in advance but it was a bit chaotic (busy) when we arrived and had to wait around for longer than we would have hoped. However, the staff were very attentive and we got sat down soon enough. An inauspicious start but it was uphill from then on. Firstly, we were informed that our drinks and starters were on the house because of the wait. I didn’t think that was necessary if I’m honest but happy to accept the gesture. We’ve been to most of the other Italian restaurants in the area since we moved here last year and I must say that the quality of the food here is second to none. All of our dishes were great. They clearly use excellent quality ingredients which are cooked to perfection. The serving staff were all very helpful, friendly and knowledgeable about the food (we had a couple of questions about ingredients that we weren’t familiar with and they answered these straight away). It was also pleasing to see quite a few dishes that you don’t usually see on other Italian menus, so nice to try something new and different. It is a busy restaurant but I’d say that the atmosphere was very lively without tipping over into being too loud. Will...

Wind was blowing in and it was extremely cold inside, very small restaurant, three of us went in and ordered garlic dough pillows fries and a margarita pizza, however the garlic pillows came in 15 minutes whilst these group of girls came in and they ordered and there food came way before them they also got offered a jug of water whilst we asked for some and didn’t get some until we asked again, the pizza and the fries didn’t come until we asked the waiters four times and they kept saying two minutes and once it came we had to go as the parking was only 1 1/2 hours so we had to get it in takeaways boxes. Fries were quite basic compared to their description however the pizza was really good and we asked for cordial and water however we got cordial and sparkling water which was...

Our previous experience at Ciao last year was excellent, sadly this latest visit was awful. Food was poorly presented and some in our group had to send it back as it was cold, others did not finish their food as it tasted so bad. Service was extremely slow and inattentive despite having plenty of staff. The work seemed to be mostly being done by one young waitress whilst the more senior ones took breaks, chatted and joked amongst themselves. All in all a very unprofessional approach, which was extremely disappointing given the previous good food and service (not to mention the numerous fantastic reviews) which had brought us back to Ciao. I hope they can get their act together and restore their former...