La casa mia Ostuni — Restaurant in London

Food is ok/average, prices affordable, the garden is a great space to sit in. However, we did not have a pleasant experience with the manager/chef aggressively arguing with us after we kindly asked for the discretionary charge to be taken off.

We asked for it to be taken off as we found a small hair in our starter and in general the service wasn't very welcoming. As the service hadn't made us feel the most comfortable, to avoid making a fuss we put the piece of food with the hair in it to the side, carried on and then just mentioned that we'd found a hair in our food to our server when he came to collect our plates so that he could let the kitchen know.

At the end of the meal, I politely asked for the discretionary service charge to be removed. The manager then came over and questioned why we wanted the service charge removing. I mentioned that we'd found a hair in our food to which he became quite angry and said we should have said something (which we did), and that it was our fault for sitting outside as it could have been a fly that went into the meal. It was quite a random and hostile end to the evening. Our server then claimed we didn't tell him about the hair when he took the payment!

With everything taken into account, probably wouldn't go back but we had the impression the manager didn't want us back - I think arguing with a customer over a discretionary charge that a customer wants to be kindly removed for a valid reason is not great. Sometimes it helps to listen to the feedback of current and potential...

Visited this small Italian and was impressed overall. Staff were very welcoming and attentive, seems tight-knit, met owner who created a friendly, relaxed atmosphere from the very start, immediately seating us. Service was fairly quick, nice to see the place filling up as the evening went on.

Good decoration under the new ownership, padded seats and everything looked very clean; even the mirrors were, quite literally, spotless. Music and volume was just right, good parking nearby as London goes.

Dishes were very authentic Italian, excellent wine selection. Generous with bread for the table, and £4.50 for roast potatoes is brilliant value and cooked very well. £6.50 tiramisu is very good as well. Generous overall, though calamari starter felt a bit small for £9.50 and being half courgettes, half calamari made it less impressive than at Côte. A touch too salty at times. Fairly slow bringing extra sauces to the table, but portion sizes more than made up for it. I’d love to see all soft drinks listed clearly on the menu; it makes ordering easier.

Menu could be expanded slightly, but it’s understandable for a small restaurant; adding pizza would be fantastic in future.

Overall, this restaurant offers authentic food, friendly service, great value on certain dishes, and a pleasant, comfortable environment. It’s clearly being run with care and attention, and it’s somewhere I’d return to if I had the money, especially as the menu...

UPDATED: After incredibly rude response that we don’t understand how this is true or fair, would just say avoid, “CCTV” would also show part of the pizza was eaten hence the issue and would like to see this footage that shows this discussion. See response below.

Eating in, ordered a gluten free pizza, wasn’t gluten free and I had to leave to be ill afterwards- girlfriend paid £23 for her she had to put in a takeaway pizza box on an evening together and are regulars- couldn’t be more angry with this experience, was apologised to but felt insincere.

Need to not advertise gluten free if this can happen, not coeliac friendly.

Tried calling twice to ask about this there is no email, but once no answer and the second...