Emilia's Crafted Pasta (Aldgate) — Restaurant in London

Longtime fan of Emilia's St. Katz location, but was up at Aldgate during lunchtime today so I tried the Aldgate location. Night and day experieince.

I was solo today, and I am studying for a test so I had some books with me. I was hoping to order a quick lunch and study while eating before heading home.

When I entered the restaurant, I had to ask if it was closed, as there was not a single other customer. The waitress (Archie?) said that on Sundays things were just quiet, and I was welcome to sit anywhere. Great!

I moved to sit in a booth for the extra space for my books, and Archie came over and asked me to sit in the other half of the restaurant - and again said I could sit anywhere.

I have previously spent a decade in food service, and so completely understand that when a restaurant is quiet, you try to concentrate customers in a section of the restaurant so it is easier to manage. No problem.

I go to sit down at a 4-person table so I would have extra space for my book, and again Archie comes over and asks me to move to a much smaller 2-person table. At this point I am still the only person in the restaurant. I ask her if I could please just sit there since there's nobody else in the restaurant. She says no. If I sat there, she tells me she would have to rearrange the place settings and she doesn't want to do that.

I quickly eat, at this point just trying to get out of there as fast as possible. Nobody comes to offer me the bill or check on my meal. I have to stand up and wait by the cashier's till to get attention to pay my bill. Again, i'm still the only person in the restaurant.

Food was good, but absolutely terrible service. I'm not surprised this location was dead while the St. Katz one is always busy. If you want good pasta in London, pick the St. Katz location, its not far from Adlgate and they treat you like a human.

Photo is of the empty restaurant as I...

I ordered the carbonara pasta at the aldgate branch. Unfortunately, the pasta was severely undercooked, this went beyond al dente; it was almost inedible. Another person at our group table had the same issue with their carbonara. We brought this to the attention of the main hostess/waitress, who took the dishes back to the chef. The chef, who was in our line of sight, clearly wasn’t pleased that we had sent the food back. The waitress returned to tell us that the chef insisted the pasta was “perfect” and there were no issues, but if we still wanted it cooked further, they would do so. Her tone was rude and patronising. We said yes. It then took another 15 minutes for the pasta to come back while the rest of our table had already finished eating. This was very frustrating, especially since the staff were fully aware we were waiting. We asked for the bill and clarified that we were all paying separately, they applied a small discount for the carbonara situation but then added a mandatory service charge that was higher than the discount, which made it feel pointless. At the end, when the final person went to pay, the system showed a remaining balance of £35, when it should have been around £17. The waitress insisted this was correct and said it was because not everyone had paid the service charge. We repeatedly explained that the service charge had already been included in each individual’s payment. It took asking her to show all the card receipts for us to finally identify that she had charged an extra meal on the system. It may have been an unintentional error but the way she stood her ground and made it seem like we were being difficult when the error was on her part was baffling and to make it worse there was no apology when this was identified either.

Overall, the food was disappointing, and the service was disorganised and dismissive. A frustrating experience we won’t...

It takes a lot for me to put pen to paper, but sometimes your hand is forced. Emila’s ‘handcrafted pasta’ has little to no correlation to actual freshness. Tonight’s dinner was so disappointing. Burrata for starter was of good quality but served with bread killed with salt. Considering I have a penchant for over-salting myself, this is bad. But the sore point here is the pasta… such a colossal fail…. The four-hour slow cooked ragu lacked depth, no witness of the advertised béchamel, instead drowned in a thickly grated, non-descript cheese. The pasta itself was seemingly not fresh and seriously lacking sauce. Same story with the carbonara- below average pasta and dry. Unacceptable… this is the main event.

Dessert was an equal offence. Lemon cake doused with cheap honey. Why do I guess cheap- because it lacked any balance, instead tasting like sugar syrup. Emilia’s special (vanilla ice-cream with crushed biscuits) an equal affront- completely drowned with the before mentioned sickly honey. The shot of amaretto was a disaster- more like a Starbucks sweetener than a digestif. Come on guys, play fair…

Tonight we were lucky to dine on a 50% discount (due to a soft launch discount), but should this have been at full price, it would have been even more painful paying the bill (plus what’s the random 20% added after discount and service…?? VAT apparently- riiiight). On the bright side- the staff is hospitable and attentive. However, the standard of food really needs to lift here, or at least amend your advertising. Should this be sold as chain restaurant experience, then (maybe) it would pass. But it’s not. Emila’s positions itself as one of the best-handcrafted pasta restaurants in London, in reality, the food tonight was fighting to...