Amalia - Italian Restaurant Liverpool — Restaurant in Liverpool

Came on a fairly busy Sunday evening service, we had booked prior and had heard good reviews so thought we should try it out. We walked in and waited behind another couple waiting to be seated but this took 10 minutes even as tables were sat empty. I noticed there were plenty of staff members seeming to wander aimlessly around the room without any acknowledgment of us. When the manager (i assume as he was in a different shirt to everyone else) got round to us we asked if we could sit outside. He said yes, scan the menu on our phones, someone will be out to take our order. We sat outside along with other diners eating and drinking, but we sat there for a further 15 minutes without any waiting staff coming outside to take our order. By this time my partner was pretty agitated, 25 minutes already wasted and we were ready to order. We went back inside and the manager came upto us as if we were new customers again. I explained we'd been sat outside for 15 minutes, he apologised and said he forgot. I requested to then sit inside as we surely wouldn't be forgotten about then. We wanted to sit outside initially because we were going to be put in the middle of the room inside but, beggars can't be choosers. Our order was swiftly taken, drinks came quickly, everything arrived quickly but I do think the food was quite mediocre unfortunately. The starters of the mozzarella and roasted veg, king prawn starter in sauce was lovely but the mains lacked lustre. I had the seafood pasta and my parter had the spag bol. I noticed a lady with a pasta dish was given parmesan but we weren't offered that, and noone checked of our food was OK even though staff were walking past us all the time. We even had to take cutlery from the other table because they hadn't given us new ones after our starter even when my partner tried to get the attention of a member of staff. At this point we were ready for the bill, and we were waiting another 10 minutes from being given the bill, to getting the card machine. It was such a shame, especially when seeing the restaurant wasn't at full capacity. I'm really not sure what went wrong but unfortunately we...

This large Italian restaurant was recommended to me – not far from my hotel so I thought I’d give it a go. It’s down a little side street off of Duke Street and has an affiliated artisan deli next door.

Ate quite late so it wasn’t that busy – inside is bright and, on this occasion, fully decorated for Halloween – big spider etc. I don’t really do Halloween. Don’t understand it. The imagery is weird – spiders, cobwebs, pumpkins etc. But I don’t mind others doing it, so that was fine.

Anyhow, the service was quick and efficient and there was a decent buzz in the room - various tables, families etc. The beer was a Scavelli draught – this was a decent lager. Not had it before. It was the sort of beer you want in an Italian restaurant. There was also Peroni in bottles. I like Peroni but I wanted a change. Change is important sometimes.

The food menu itself is quite large, with the full plethora of things you’d’ expect – pizza, pasta etc. Also saw there was a burger. I ordered Mozzarella in Carrotza to start – massive slab of cheese in breadcrumbs with a tomato sauce – and the chicken and mushroom calzone for main. Tasty food – the calzone was fat and stuffed full of filling, small bowl of tomato sauce on the side, sort of like tomato soup, worked well. They do some sort of calzone challenge – I can’t imagine how large that must be, since my calzone was also on the large side. I don’t like my food to be a challenge though, so I won’t have that.

I was full, but I had pudding anyway because they had pistachio tiramisu – this was lovely, with a decent whip of cream on top, but I should know better by now. Will I ever learn.

Table to the right was having some sort of lively debate about politics – good for them. Real debate is rare these days.

I would eat here again, I think. I enjoyed my meal but would probably moderate my intake and not have both a starter and a pudding....

We booked a table last night at 7pm for 8.30pm via their online booking system. Upon arrival at the restaurant at 8.25pm we stood in a queue at door waiting to be seated. The manager walked past the people in the queue multiple times over the next 5-10 mins before actually acknowledging anyone was there or to say he would be a minute before he would be over. He actively walked about avoiding eye contact with customers for quite some time. When he eventually spoke to us he stated that each evening when he runs the bookings off the system before service they do not take any more updated bookings after this time. This was very disappointing as the booking system online was still open to be used with availability and as a tourist only visiting Liverpool for the weekend how were we to know? He told us that he could seat us for dinner at 9.30 and that we could wait in the chichetti bar across the street. We did so and ordered a drink and some breads. There was very little communication and once it got to 9.30 and beyond I asked a waitress what time we could expect to be seated. After some back and forth we were told there would be no room for us in the restaurant but we could order from the takeaway menu to eat in the bar. We were amongst a few other groups in the same position. By the time we got to order and eat it was over an hour and a half since our original meal time which was very late for us and ruined our plans for the rest of the evening. Very disappointed by this as this restaurant had been highly recommended online and we ended up eating pizza out of a cardboard box at a bar stool. Would not recommend visiting as communication is very poor and the food was not worth the extensive wait. If they had known they were not going to have tables to sit us originally we would’ve went elsewhere but by the time we were told most other places had stopped...