La Casita Restaurant — Restaurant in London

I have been visiting La Casita for a number of years & have never been disappointed ; tonight (11/04) was the exception. The starters of cheese fries & chilli jam, calamari & garlic prawns were a mixed level of tastiness - the best were the prawns (lots of garlic butter which was great), the worst were the calamari (these were inedible & returned). The waiter did apologise & removed this item from the bill. We did order some pão caseiro bread (traditional Portuguese bread) after the starters were served - this was definitely NOT pão caseiro - very disappointing. The mains consisted of mixed fish skewer (espetada), baked salted cod (bacalhau ) & sirloin steak - all 3 were below par. The steak was NOT sirloin, it was a largish flat piece of beef with a fair amount of “flobby” fat smothered with peppercorn sauce. Half of the steak was edible & the fries & side salad were good. The bacalhau was overcooked, way too firm not soft & silky & dry to taste ; the accompanying vegetables were good. The worse was the espetada ; the tuna was hard & grey in colour, the calamari was the same as the starter, difficult to cut & “rubbery”, the prawns were near on impossible to peel as they were stuck to the shell, the salmon was hard & dry. Along with the vegetables, the whole skewer was burnt / extremely charred. Around 75% of the food was left on our plates. The waiter did ask if everything was ok when clearing our table, we did respond giving an overall opinion that everything was overcooked. Not too much conversation between us, he acknowledged & left. The bill didn’t reflect any other discount apart from the calamari starter. Maybe an “off” night for the Chef but @ our detriment & £££ ; not good. No one goes out to have a bad / unsatisfactory meal but this was probably one of the worst meals we’ve had in a long time. NB the photo’s can & are deceiving - the food looks good but tasted the...

I had a very bizarre and odd experience at this restaurant. The atmosphere was empty and cold, with sterile and basic décor. Despite my sister's praises about the food being well-priced, I found it to be average at best. The prawn starter was basic and the corn-fed chicken with chips was nothing to write home about. The seasoning was sharp and left a strange sensation in my mouth.

However, the saving grace of the night was our waitress, Bruna. She was friendly, attentive, and truly the life of the restaurant. Despite the lack of customers, she made us feel welcome and took great care of us. We ended up staying longer than planned, enjoying multiple jugs of sangria and other drinks.

To my shock and disappointment, I later found out that Bruna had been fired for "talking too much." This decision seemed unjust and heartless, especially considering she was the only staff member who seemed to care about the guests. The restaurant lacked any music or atmosphere, making it a depressing place to dine.

I can't help but feel that there were racist undertones at play here, as the restaurant seemed to be trying to cater to a specific audience. Treating a young, hardworking employee like Bruna in such a manner is unacceptable. It's clear that this establishment is not a fine dining restaurant, even though they are obviously straining to be and I am horrified by the way they treated someone who went above and beyond to make our night enjoyable. Shame on them for ruining what could have been a pleasant experience and be warned they obviously have no respect or care about...

Had ordered from La Casita quite often during the pandemic and found their food to be absolutely delicious.

However, my partner and I had recently ordered again and we were really disappointed with what we had recieved (poor quality food and small portion sizes). I had subsequently left a bad review expressing my disappointment.

The restaurant reached out to me directly offering to redo the order. Having recieved this, I can say the portion size was a lot better and what we would expect.

My only concern is I do think the quality of the food on this occasion was not as good compared to our previous orders. Mainly the meat which was average. Perhaps a personal preference but I did have quite a bit of fat in my meat which wasn't great and my partner's steak still thin and lacked flavour. For the food I would probably go at 3.5 out of 5 (previously a 5* during pandemic).

However, overall, I will leave the restaurant with 4 stars as their customer service was outstanding and they did look to rectify where they went wrong last time to the point that they even went out their way to deliver to me themselves. They seemed very sorry for what had happened to our previous order and I accept their apology.

My only advice to the restaurant is to please keep an eye on quality control with the meat that's being sourced and how it's being cooked as I'm pretty sure there's been a negative change here compared to when we ordered back in 2020/21 (perhaps new staff? Change...