Sambuca Trinity Square, Gateshead — Restaurant in Gateshead

I generally avoid Sambuca restaurants as I've had a few bad experiences, however due to a birthday invitation I visited their Trinity Square venue for the first time. First impressions of the restaurant are reasonable. It looks fairly clean but had that chain restaurant feel with various Italian dishes and drink items (many of which they don't actually have on the menu) in extruded characters on the upper parts of the walls.

I ordered a pint of Fanta, which seemed fine until I finished it and realised how disgusting the glass was on the inside.

Feeling somewhat rushed into ordering, I ended up just opting for their three course lunch option... Although I wish I hadn't. For the starter I chose minestrone soup. Everyone else ordered potato skins. The starters came alarmingly fast. The soup was distinctly average and not as hot as I would like.

For my main, I opted for the stagioni pizza. The base was incredibly thin and didn't seem properly cooked. The toppings were cooked. This made me wonder if they'd put it in the oven on a cold tray. The strangest thing about the pizza was that it didn't really taste of anything. The ham looked like the sort that comes out of an iron shaped tin and there didn't appear to be any herbs of any sort on the pizza. The pizza sauce may have just been passata or blended tinned tomatoes.

Where I was sitting, I had a direct view of the kitchen through a window in the door. Early in the visit, I was treated to the spectacle of a member of staff vigorously wiping his nose on his hand. Whilst eating, I had clear sight of a number of staff sitting on a metal table eating food with their hands, including Mr Snotfingers. Soon after they had finished eating, some of those staff re-entered the restaurant area, still chewing on the last morsels of their food. Shockingly, within minutes, that same metal table that had been supporting staff buttocks was being used for food preparation.

The final course was ice-cream, which was quite nice and creamy.

On finishing my meal, I went to the toilet. I was quickly forced to about turn in order to report to a member of staff that none of the cubicles in the men's, nor the disabled toilet had any toilet paper. This was quickly rectified, although with industrial rolls that were placed on top of the cisterns and not in the fitted dispensers.

Overall, I left with major concerns about their hygiene levels and minor dissatisfaction over food quality and taste. Staff training levels appear to be very poor, almost on a par with their website which is very dated looking and has no booking facilities.

Whilst it has so much potential, my opinion of Sambuca hasn't changed. I'm sure I'll have the misfortune to visit one of their restaurants again when an overly frugal...

Never been here before so with it being my birthday thought we would give it a try never again very disappointed. We arrived at 7pm there was few in the place so we got seated then a waiter asked what we would like to drink my husband had a pint of fosters and I asked for a half of diet coke when it came the fosters was flat with no life in it and my coke looked like a children's small glass baring in mind this was £2 I did ask the waiter is this a children's coke which he replied to as no, your were lucky to get two drinks out of this. Our food arrived potato skins for starter then pizza and pasta which was tasteless the pizza dough looked half cooked with very little topping and pasta had no taste, as we were eating they did seem to want you out of the place for a early finish sweeping around you while eating and a waitress standing picking her teeth with a cocktail stick which knocked me sick,you just don't do this while people are eating, while eating I popped to the toilet when I returned my husband said the waiter came over to take the plates away and my husband did have to say my wife is not finished yet, the service was not great and staff not at all friendly basically wanting a early finish while we were sitting finishing off our food the waitress did go and turn some lights off which I thought was really rude. We payed the bill left our drinks and left, without any member of staff saying thank you or bye this place is absolutely terrible and I am happy to say we would...

Strolled in a few weeks ago before using the cinema with my partner and was less than impressed. We can't have been the only ones as the staff all looked like they were hating their experience just as much as we were, and my pasta seemed to be trying to drown itself in "carbonara sauce" in solidarity. Not once did a waiter even smile at us, and we must have looked dangerously dehydrated as three times someone (different person each time) came over to take our drinks orders and despite saying we were ready to order food each time we were told "someone else will be taking your food order". The food was distinctly below average and thank goodness we were so persistently waited on for drinks, as the wine was bareable and only slightly drier than my partners pizza.

Overall we would not recommend and I only gave it 2 stars as it is conviniently located next to the cinema, car park, tesco and metro station. I really don't understand why so many of these restaurants have opened up around the North East. It must be by getting customers drunk by repeatedly taking drinks orders and turning the lights off to sing happy birthday to a rowdy table of girls so no one can actually see what they're eating. I only wish we had been as intoxicated as the...