AL DENTE Goodge Street — Restaurant in London

I have never experienced such a rude, condescending and patronising person in my life until I came to Al Dente. Unfortunately I could not get the name of the staff member who so rudely addressed my party and I. I do however believe she was the manager, an Italian women with long red hair. We called 3 hours in advance to get a table booked for 7 people. In that call, there was no mention of a fee that would be applied to the bill if a number of persons does not show up nor were any credit details taken during the call. Upon arriving, we were placed onto a 4 seated table; with 7 chairs (2 placed at the corners of the table) — there was hardly any space for 4 people, let alone 7. Thankfully; 2 people from our party could not attend— so the table was able to tightly host a 5 persons party.

After ordering both our appetisers and pasta dishes, we get abruptly told that we have to pay a £30 compensation (£15 per person) fee for “unused seats”. We offered to spend that “compensation fee” on food to fulfill the £30 supposed “no show” fee but were very quickly declined. Having waitressed in the past, I have the utmost respect for cancellation fees policies and professionals in customer service. However, if a policy is not mentioned on call, nor on the Al Dente website, nor were any of our card details required on booking and we were given a 4 seater table — its unfair and illogical to ask a payment of us after having taken our order.

After trying to come to a reasonable explanation with the manager, to which she started the conversation with a hostile tone, she proceeds to make incredibly rude and condescending statements ranging as far as implying we couldn’t afford the meal. She made comments such as “if a simple policy is hard to understand, let me try and explain it to you again” / “I know what it’s like to be 20 and have no money, and not be able to pay” / “if £30 is so much for you…” . Mind you — we were happy to reach the extra £30 payment by ordering more food so it was not a problem of payment but rather of being charged without being informed. Beyond that, this same staff member kept reiterating we “took seats away” but as I previously mentioned, we were placed onto a 4 seater table and so 2 other individuals especially from another party would not be able to fit. Even other patrons chimed in to defend us — claiming that it would be unfair to charge us an additional £30 if the policy was not mentioned on call or on the website.

She kept rolling her eyes, speaking in a very hostile tone and attempted to embarrass us by very loudly alluding to the restaurant that we could not afford our meal. I’ve never felt so belittled, disrespected and used as some monetary atm machine by a restaurant staff before, until Al Dente. I used to love Al Dente, I’ve hosted dinner parties there, recommend Al Dente — but unfortunately it’s disappointed me far beyond words.

The staff member who addressed us claimed that this was what she “was taught” by Al Dente. I hope Al Dente, however, can rectify this issue of etiquette and improper disclosure of company closure. As customer law states — if not explicitly stated on company website, it is not applicable. I hope no other customer has to ever be humiliated, disrespected and spoken to in such an...

Having only been open for three months this gorgeous little restaurant in Fitzrovia is doing extremely well. Once you go inside, meet the very friendly staff and try their exquisite pasta dishes you soon realise why!

The restaurant itself is quite small but beautifully decorated. The seating is all up high on stools with high tables – which go round the outside of the restaurant with one big table in the middle. There are some extra cute little touches such as the cutlery and glasses for water hidden in a little drawer in front of your chair. We absolutely loved that and thought it was a great and fun idea!

Enjoying a fine glass of Merlot each we chose the Tagliere to share. This was a beautiful starter with Burrata and mixed sliced cured meats. We also ordered some lovely crusty bread to accompany it. I’m a huge fan of Burrata – it was incredible creamy on the inside and delicious! The selection of cured meats were fab and it all went perfectly well with some olive oil and crusty bread.

For main dishes we opted for the Green Tortelli (Spinach, Mushrooms, Ricotta Cheese, Truffle – £8.95) and the Cacio E Pepe (Cheese, Parmesan Cheese 24 months, black pepper) (£6.50) as mains. These pasta dishes blew me away – they were absolutely fantastic. The Green Tortelli was incredibly creamy and the handmade, fresh pasta was just perfect! If you are a serious cheese lover then the Tonnarelli Cacio E Pepe will be the dish for you. The beautiful al dente cooked bucatini pasta were the foundations for this gloriously cheesy dish and the black pepper gave it the extra special edge. The whole way through our main courses we couldn’t stop saying how incredible this food was!

Al Dente Restaurant in FitzroviaAl Dente Restaurant in FitzroviaWe didn’t have a huge amount of room for dessert, however we couldn’t go to an Italian like this and not try their Tiramisu (£4.50). It arrived in a cute little kilner jar and was absolutely delicious with fluffy and creamy coffee flavours. It was a perfect end to a stunning meal.

To top it off, the staff at Al Dente are lovely and you can tell they really care about the quality of their food and showing their customers a great dining experience.We recommend to book if you’re going there over the weekend as word is spreading about this new pasta restaurant in Fitzrovia! Such amazing pasta at such...

I write in response to the comment to my review, left by the "owner". The response exemplifies the unprofessional manner with which you run your business and the reason you will lose more than just myself as a customer if you do not improve your level of service. I have worked in customer services for years and I am really quite shocked at how bad yours is, and the arrogance with which you respond to reviews. Firstly, the manager who tried my dish absolutely DID agree that it was too salty (speaking in Italian, which I understand). I know very well the ingredients to a carbonara having worked as a chef in Italian restaurants and since I visit Italy very often. The dish was too salty and the professional thing to do when I brought this to the attention of the manager, would have been to offer an alternative dish, as any other restaurant with decent service would have done. The owner, in his response to my review, had the cheek to say that I had finished the whole dish when I complained about the saltiness, which is an absolute lie (I had had three mouthfuls before deciding that I just could not continue eating the dish) and again, extremely unprofessional behaviour to mention this as a reason to justify your lack of good customer service skills. The "quick" alternative was offered to me after asking again and after 30 minutes of sitting down watching my partner eat, thinking that an alternative dish was being prepared for me (by which time I had been in the restaurant for nearly one hour), which shows the lack of professionality of the manager, who should have ensured that I as a customer was satisfied, at least partially? Furthermore, the response did not even have an apology for the bad experience I had, never mind any attempt to ensure that I may return in the future....