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 friend invites me.