Alto by San Carlo | London — Restaurant in London

TL;DR: Very disappointing, only upside is the atmosphere and the drinks! Food cold, some of which inedible, sent back multiple times, waited 20 mins to pay bill, less than ideal customer service, low ceilings! We arrived early and were sat at the bar, ordered some drinks which were good, but after a while we hadn't been seated yet and it was past our booking time. the staff said that they had assumed we were happy to stay seated at the bar the whole time. We were eventually moved to our table. We ordered the garlic bread with tomato and basil, the truffle chips, beef cheek, spaghetti carbonara, calamari and truffle ravioli. This is where things took a turn. The beef cheek arrived and it was cold, the sauce was congealed and had developed a skin. we asked the staff if this was meant to be hot and were told that it was so we sent it back. The garlic bread arrived which was mostly fine however following this our spaghetti and calamari arrived. spaghetti was completely cold and congealed, the sauce had stuck together and the pasta was cold. we sent this back as well. The beef cheek returned & it was finally warm enough for us to be happy to eat it, at this point we were very hungry. we tried the calamari, the batter just fell off, the calamari was completely cold and incredibly rubbery, worse than frozen quality. at this point our spaghetti carbonara returned at it was just as cold if not colder than before. our chips arrived, and you guessed it, these were not hot at all, they were poorly cooked and colder than the air around us. We spoke to a waitress who sent us the manager, i explained the situation and highlighted that we had sent most of the food back at this point for similar reasons, she then took all of the food and returned it to the kitchen. After a little while our food returned, the spaghetti was cold again and completely cooled down from the barely lukewarm temperature to an inedible state within 5 minutes, with a tasteless incredibly wet and watery sauce. for a place aimed at Italian tapas as they describe is this is frankly ridiculous, we do not have the ability to inhale plates of food within seconds of them arriving given the encouragement to order and sample multiple different ones. The chips were returned and these were finally somewhat warm. the calamari however was worse than before, soft batter which falls off, completely rubbery and cold, frankly disgusting. At this point we did our best to eat some of the food we had ordered including the ravioli which was fine, as we were incredibly hungry and had spent that majority of our time waiting. Ordered a desert, the peach frangipane. When this was served the plate was put in front of us, the ice cream slid half way across the place, and once we tasted it we could tell it had been kept in the freezer or a very cold fridge. No taste, hard and cold, dense pastry, and frankly calling this a 'frangipane' is just purely inaccurate. I suggest looking at what a frangipane cake acutally is. We asked for the bill, unsurprisingly none of the food that we sent back or complained about, or the extra wait time was accounted for. We of course were quoted full price for all. When it came to paying, the restaurant only seemingly has one card machine which wasn't working properly as they almost charged us 25 pounds extra on top of our current bill. took 15-20 mins to resolve, which involved us being sat at out table, with the staff leaving us there whilst they messed around with their computers, once this was resolved there was no card machine available so they instead started giving bills to other tables. I had to wave multiple people down until we got the attention of the manager who asked us to get up and come across to the computer so that we could pay there instead. we obliged, but would like to add that this venue is not ideal for anyone of 6'0, as you will, as I did, bang your head on the beams, some kind of warning would have been appreciated! After finally waiting 20mins we paid the full bill and left, I would only recommend going for drinks &...

This is the first time I've ever left a bad review, so I think that already speaks volumes.

If you're planning something special, this isn't the place to go...

I booked this restaurant, thinking it would kickstart me and my boyfriend's romantic weekend away in London and the experience was that terrible, it left me in tears. What was meant to be romantic turned into disaster as soon as we sat down. First of all, I asked for tap water and instead was given bottled water, which already had the bill up to £6. As soon as we sat down, the waiter is coming over every 2 minutes asking if we had decided what we wanted to eat, so we felt extremely under pressure and it didn't provide a relaxing environment as it suggested to us, as diners that they wanted us to leave quickly, despite us booking a table.

So let's get into the food... We order the mixed olives to start, which was extortionate in price for the amount that you get. For mains, I ordered the spaghetti bolognese and my partner ordered the truffle steak. First of all, my pasta came out at the same time as the olives and was terrible (I could've and have made better!), with the sauce obviously not being cooked for 6 hours (as stated on the menu) and the pasta not being al dente, but actually undercooked. We are waiting for around 20-30 minutes for my partners steak to come out, where by that time, I had already eaten my pasta as it would've gone cold. Finally, the steak comes out, which despite tasting nice, was the snidest cut of steak (which was certainly not 500g as stated on the menu) where you also had to order fries alongside it, so his meal alone came to about £45. We also ordered the zucchini frites, which they had written done incorrectly so it was a completely different dish, and arrived after we had finished our mains. What did concern me though is the dish they had mistaken it for was actually a starter and yet, they hadn't even begun to make it. We also ordered two glasses of wine to the table which cost £34, where on the menu it was stated at £12.

While the waiters were attentive at the start, after food was ordered, their attention turned swiftly to new customers and we had been forgotten. Where it is a small rooftop, so I completely understand the crampt environment, something we really disapproved of was the waiters would have multiple table's food being served from one tray. In addition, they would be carrying grey buckets of dirty plates back and to from the kitchen, which wasn't very pleasant when we were trying to eat. Also, the view was a brick wall.

By the end, we wanted to leave as quick as we could. Once the bill arrived it came to, £120 for realistically, tiny portions which left us starving after (so much so, we had to get a KFC), terrible service and a tense atmosphere.

In conclusion, if you are planning on having a good time, LOOK...

I decided to visit this place with my husband as a little treat. We have previously tried all the popular and fancy restaurants in London. They have all been so overpriced with terrible service and even more shocking under flavoured food. Every restaurant we have been has been lacking in one area if not all. We were very worried about this place being just like the rest. Well, let’s just say this place was one of the best places we have visited in London without breaking the bank. We are truly so impressed with everything. We picked this place because of the beautiful photos we have seen of the rooftop open with the sunlight shining through. Unfortunately, all we had was grey skies and rain. However, the atmosphere changed from what I thought it was going to be a lovely summer evening, to a very cosy autumnal evening. There was a very slight breeze coming through, but they also had internal heaters on. It was the perfect temperature. The moment we got to the lift we were greeting by a lovely lady, who took our details and sent us up to the rooftop. When we entered we were greeted by another lovely lady who was very friendly, polite and helpful. The staff were amazing. I did not see one single member of staff who stood around even for 5 seconds. They were all working flat out, the restaurant wasn’t packed either. Everywhere you turned there was someone doing something. It was easy to grab staff’s attention (not like most places where they avoid eye contact at all cost). Staff were all attentive and came to us constantly clearing our plates off the table. The food was honestly one of the best we have ever had, and our standard and expectations are very high. The gentleman who took some of our orders was very funny and it was nice that we could have a laugh and a joke with him. Everything was bursting with flavour. You could taste the salt, you could taste the olive oil. We ordered about 10 dishes in total, there was not a single complaint on any of the food that we ate. Everything was just perfect. Their pistachio cake is to die for. My husband recently visited Italy and had a homemade Pistachio Cake and he said the cake from Alto was much better. Our bill came to a total of £150 with service charge, which we thought was a very good price considering how many dishes we had, how exceptionally good the food was and the staff absolutely deserve their service charge. We plan on taking our children with us next time so I hope this isn’t a one-off, and when we visit again we will have the same experience. This place just feels authentic. That’s the best way to describe it.

To summarise our visit: Atmosphere: 10/10 (shame about the rain) Food: 11/10 (made me happy) Service: 11/10 (staff were amazing)

Thank you for a...