Buon Apps River Lounge and Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Leeds

After visiting fairly regularly over the past few years woth family and friends and really loving Buon Apps, I've been so disappointed by our last few visits in terms of experience and service.

My partner and I walked down with our dog and sat in the dog friendly area on a sunny eve about a week or so ago as we'd been given a voucher as a gift. The menu in this area is severely reduced and you're left to order for yourself via their website. I understand this makes things easier on a busy weekend day, but for a fairly quiet weekday evening it seems a little off, especially when the prices are still the same as if you were actually getting the full experience.

We'd ordered drinks, bread with oil, and olives. The starters/nibbles arrived after about 20 mins and before the drinks, not ideal but likely to happen due to the reduces service setup in that area of the restaurant. We then went to order our mains from the disappointingly small menu and found that we could not redeem the voucher against our bill. Due to no staff popping by to see if we needed anything more or to clear the finished with starter plates, i went to the till point to resolve this.

The lady on the till was apologetic and sorted everything out for us. I actually asked to order from the main menu as the smaller menu didn't suit, which she did accomodate so kudos where it's due. Dining in that area requires payment upon ordering, so I settled up at the same time. Overall, including what my partner paid for on initial drinks and nibbles, we spent around £120 on food and drink, an optional tip was added to the bill, which seems quite poor when we'd done the majority of the running about/serving ourselves, there was none of the usual restaurant charm and experience, and we'd not actually had a chance to sample the food as we were paying up front, but hey ho.

When our food came, sadly, my pasta was pretty bland and a little chewy in parts, which for £14+ is not ideal. My partner had a pizza which was really lovely, and the drinks were fine. We had to prompt the waiter for salt, pepper and parmesan which i feel is again down to the reduced service - perhaps i'm wrong. We'd already paid the bill so left without saying anything and headed home.

For me, even when sittings in the non-dog friendly area, the service isn't great, the food is not up to scratch considering the price point, and generally the overall experience is just not what it was which is just hugely disappointing really. I understand there are issues with staffing and it's been a tough time for the industry, but we've supported this business in person over the years, and by buying cook at home/delivery during lockdown and restrictions, but i don't think we will be returning, sadly.

There's so little competition in Otley, so my opinion following a negative experience is probably going to be taken with a pinch of salt, but felt it was...

Most disappointed with the experience today. This meal was something we had looked forward to for a very special family occasion in combination with Easter, but it was marred by the slow, erratic service, where each item arrived separately and side dishes were forgotten. Still not sure we got everything that was supposed to go with each meal, but there were no vegetables. The special main, consisting of 3 large King prawns, one of which was rotten, brown and soggy in the middle and smelled disgusting,a peice of salmon and seabass on some soggy "roast" potatoes was really not worth its £28 price tag and there was no apology or acknowledgement for the"off" prawn. For a menu which seems to have little variation over time, I would have hoped that practice made perfect, but it appears not. I'm not sure whether the change in quality has occurred since changing premises, but there certainly does not seem to be the same attention to detail as previously experienced. The peanut stack is just a big pile of peanut butter, and the bread and butter pudding was really not up to the previous standard of melt in the mouth heaven, and we were not even offered any custard,cream or ice cream which I am sure would have releived the stodge. We were left waiting at an empty table, with no offer of coffee, and so after 20 mins we had to ask for the bill, the waitress, really seemed to look disgruntled to be distracted from flouncing around the room. That said, the young waiter, who did actually serve the food was apologetic that everything was not available at the same time and that he had to go chasing up all the missing items, so I cannot fault him. Really really upset that this was not the positive treat that we had looked forward to, especially as I had built up the place to be something wonderful. Won't be going back and...

Our first and definately not our last visit to the outstanding Buon Apps. Our family have been to many highly established and regarded Italian restaurants in and around Harrogate (sasso), Leeds (san Carlo) and York. We all agreed that Buon Apps was as good as all these. My Tagliatelle Bolognese was the best ive ever eaten anywhere. The pasta was perfect. All the familiar (and our favourite) Italian flavours were on offer within all our chosen dishes. Every mouthful introduced our tastebuds to the magnificent aroma's of garlic, basil, rosemary and tomato all in varying levels of intensity. The Garlic breads were light and crispy with a perfect amount of herbs, namely garlic and rosemary. The service was sharp but not rushed. The chocolate and hazelnut ice cream was also delicious, especially the chocolate. When it began to melt in the dish the sauce had the most exquisite sheen and chocolate colour. If i was an artist i would have painted with it. Thank you Buon Apps. We all had a delightful eating experience. We look forward to seeing you very soon for our second visit. Nigel, Liz,...