Cristallo — Restaurant in Great Britain

Was seemingly a welcome find close by our hotel on a tired first night. Drinks ordered and delivered quickly with food order taken after we’d asked for a little more time to decide. Starters were brought at same time as mains as requested with no problem. Female staff member was friendly and helpful when my wife had cause to comment on the child portion appearing size of my young teenage, with better appetite than I, son’s spaghetti bolognaise (his signature favourite dish). She was assured it was an adult size dish as ordered but provided another same sized but complimentary without problem. Wife and my own food, calzone, was enjoyably good. Ordered a bottle of their cheapest but not cheap wine and that also was fine. The environment was very comfortably relaxing and music, welcomed and at no time interfered with our conversation. Lighting and decor pleasantly good. Male waiter from initial contact felt a little awkward, though subtly and unable to finger exactly why. Thought he was wishing to take order and misunderstood he actually wanted to take back the specials board if we didn’t want to order from that. Had a good time over all. Fully intended to return before leaving a few days later, expecting to have a similarly enjoyable experience. Unfortunately, having happily given a healthy just sub 15% cash tip on top of meals cost as we left, on returning to our room, wife reviewed our receipt to discover an already added service charge of no insignificant amount as we rarely go out and self indulgently push the boat when we do. I’m used to expecting an added service charge for groups of diners but we were Mum, Dad and a young teenage son. Was a shame it wasn’t pointed out, especially as we’d discussed whether they operated a trunk system, which they don’t, but I made a point of a decent size cash tip anyway. Would have been nicer then to mention that service was added giving me transparent free choice whether to further tip or not. A lesson for me to check every restaurant bill now on even if dining alone. Happened again at the next evenings different restaurant but won’t fall for it anywhere again. Sadly it left me feeling too awkward to return as intended as I would have felt obligated to say something which I suspect would have led to uncomfortable experience, so we didn’t bother. A...

Updated review: (downgraded!!) 2nd visit since our last 3mths ago. Came back as promised but what an awful 👎experience! Walked in & asked to book for later but were told we didn't need to. Came back a few hours later to find it absolutely rammed! Inexperienced waiter took us to last table available (jumping another couple right in front of us! 😱).... then just abandoned us! Screaming kids belonging to a member of staff in the back room next to us + overhead speaker made an unbearable noisy experience the entire time. Had to attract Matthew's attention before anyone remembered we were still sat there with no drinks. Then waited another 15min before they arrived. Similar experience placing our order for starters. Took nearly 1hr to get them + another hour for mains. Gave up ordering deserts as it would have taken well over 3hrs total. Had to get our own cutlery & serviettes from the bar (because they forgot!) Served my own parmigiano (again, because they forgot!) Food was NOT prepared to same standard.... less of it & different prep. and not one person even thought to ask us whether the meal / everything was OK (probably a good job they didn't!!) We KNOW the quality of food here can be very good (great chef 👍)... but all that is let down by chaotic inexperienced waiters (Asian?!!) who don't have a clue in conjunction with poor / non existent front of house management and TOTAL inability to cater at busy periods. Had we known how bad it was, we would (should) have walked out!! If you charge these prices and claim to be an 'Italian' restaurant, then I expect top-notch service. This was utterly abysmal!!!! We definitely will not come back again at peak periods!

Previous visit: (only 3 tables occupied).. Visited Cristallo on the last evening of a 3 day break in Bournemouth. Partner had Whitebait starter & lamb main & I had the Infused Mussels & Spaghetti Carbonara main. All dishes were perfectly presented & tasted absolutely fantastic. Matthew was an absolute star making some great recommendations (the lamb)... which was just amazing. Highly recommend & will definitely be returning on our next trip.

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I arrived at the restaurant at 8:20, I asked if i could add a chair onto my friends table which the server said there was no issues at all. I placed my order straight away, it was a spaghetti carbonara, I waited 1 hour and 30 minutes for this. I was constantly checking in wish the servers about where my food was. I found at the 1 hour mark that my order had in fact not reached the kitchen and assured it was being made. This was also the case for my friends meal who was sat next to me. This resulted in my party having to leave said friend and I as it was getting too late cold. No food was offered such as bowl of chips etc. I didn’t order a drink, no tap water was offered. To top it off servers kept making ill-landing jokes about the food which didn’t help the situation.

All this time they were still serving other tables and in some cases their food would arrive faster than ours. The carbonara was mediocre, definitely not 90 minutes wait worthy. The server placed my food in front of me and then what can only be described as ‘scampered’ off, it took me pulling another server aside to ask for parmesan and cracked black pepper. What made it worse was the atmosphere was so bad amongst the other tables, as we all saw them taking in more customers and not attending to the ones they had. When a group next to us got finally managed to get their food they cheered, it was sad. Finally they insisted giving us a service charge, I am all for including a service charge - I think it is right, however service charge is added when service charge is due and this simply was not one of them times. All in all...