CULTO — Restaurant in Leeds

I have just eaten here with my partner after hearing good things about this place. I've never been to a restaurant before and had such shocking customer service. No hi or pleasantries when we arrived just told to sit down by 1 lady (who seemed abrupt), 2nd lady came to take our order "are you ready" again no smile or pleasantries. I felt as if we were an inconvenience to the staff who all seemed abrupt & quite rude. Our starters we had the creamy garlic mushrooms & king prawns which were ok, although not to the standard you expect from an authentic italian. But the bread that accompanied them both was ridiculous, so hard and chewy it was impossible to eat. I am only 34 and have good teeth and it felt like it would rip my teeth out trying to take a bite out of it. But we didnt complain, just left the bread. Our mains pizza & linguine carbonara were substandard. Carbonara tasted like a wetherspoons one & linguine clumped together. The tomato sauce on the pizza base was flavourless my partner had to put tons of salf & pepper on it to eat some of it. But again we didn't complain. We just didnt eat it & sat waiting for someone to come over. And here comes the best bit, the rude lady from earlier comes to ask us if we could move tables & seats so others could sit here (not knowing we had finished as we had food still left on our plates). We were pretty shocked midmeal to be asked that, but we said its ok if we can have the bill we will just leave. So another lady comes over who is also sour faced and rude and asks if we want our pizza boxing up to take away, when we say no, she asks why & my partner explains that the pizza/tomato sauce was tasteless. What does she do? "Oh realllllllly. We have never been told that and lots of people like our pizzas" - absolutely arrogant as hell. So yeah needless to say for £50 to be looked down upon & food same standard as wetherspoons we shall not be returning. Staff need teaching...

UPDATE: I returned to Cultos, and all is right again. The food blew me away, I was greeted with a friendly welcome and I was overall so happy i went back. Goes to show any place can have a fluke.

I ordered exactly the same as what I did in my previous visit, the Diavola pizza with BBQ ribs to start. Both were delicious, piping hot and fresh.

ORIGINAL REVIEW: My past experiences blew me away with the food quality from Culto's.

However tonight's delivery was sadly a real letdown.

The Bad: My food arrived an hour after ordering (Ordered at 17:47, arrived at approximately 18:50), and was cold to the point where the cheese had hardened our pizzas.

Whether due to transport or handling, the cheese had also leaked off of the pizza, leaving blank spots on the top.

The crust had also been burnt rather badly (no, it wasn't due to the charcoal base, there was a stark difference in flavour).

Finally, the barbecue ribs despite being delicious, were very small in portion size to the last time I had them (maybe I got lucky last time?), and were very fatty with small amounts of meat to be found amongst all the fat and bone. These ribs were also the same temperature as the pizzas.

The Good: The delivery driver cultos employs is always a friendly chap.

The flavour of our starters (Arancini Al Tartufo Nero and homemade barbeque ribs) was fantastic despite the temperature.

The summary: I will return to Cultos. I work in a restaurant and fully appreciate that busy periods, stress and a myriad of other factors can lead to a less than ideal final product.

Although tonight was a letdown, it has not ruined my appetite for the delicious potential provided by these guys. They know their craft, and i'm willing to come back so they can once...

Culto for the last few years has been one of my favorites easy spots for some good food. However our visit last week was honestly terrible. We visited for my sisters birthday and the food was terrible. I ordered some grilled chicken with chilli and garlic, and realised towards the end that the chicken was not cooked and still pink. By this point it was too late as I had eaten most of it, I called the waitress over and she took it away. She came back saying the chef reckons it will be fine but if not, to call and let them know that I’ve been unwell, nobody apologised and nothing was done like offering me a drink to make the situation any better. The chicken was knocked off the bill which was the bare minimum, but nothing else was done even as a gesture of goodwill. The other food was generally pretty bad too, my sisters pizza also had an underdone egg on it with the white still slimy, my mums salad was tiny and bland, and nothing else was up to the usual standard. Even without the chicken being raw we wouldn’t have returned. I ended up being unwell for 3 days last week with typical food poisoning symptoms, and as requested I called the restaurant twice and left a voicemail, and also sent an email. I have had no response to any of this. I’m so so frustrated in this situation, serving undercooked chicken is just terrible and the last thing you want is to be unwell after eating out. The restaurant has seemed to be unbothered both when it happened and when I have tried to contact them afterwards. The least they could have done is offered an apology which I haven’t received. I would honestly avoid...