Mascalzone — Restaurant in London

It's a real nice setup with great ambience more family oriented with what used to be a rustic Italian outlook foods good and wholesome and the servings are larger than expected. It's closed for renovations and will open up in a few months...

Almost a year to the date I last reviewed this restaurant I have a tale of two restaurants...read on.....

The new restaurant is now stark white, the tables are made for .....well for people with an apatite for mice .....the table for four is impossible to sit comfortably.

The restaurant has remarkably reduced in size..the classic ambience is gone the old photos reminiscing Italy have disappeared and instead you are faced with plain white walls. The old staff is gone and I get it when one closed for nearly 7 months you will loose staff, but what mascalzone management has replaced the chef( in this case I dare say I would not consider him a chef...that's like considering a one foot wave to a tsunami)

The staff are completely unaware of what the contents are in the food.

We ordered for starters Fiesta del Bosco which is stuffed mushrooms and this was a tasteless and mediocre size of stuffed mushrooms.....it was edible but literally had to mask the combination of crushed pasta sauce and ghastly oil covered with chilli oil what I can only imagine was a combination of cheese that Tesco's threw away after a year stating unsuitable for any animals consumption not just humans......but it gets more interesting...we then at the same time ordered PENNE AL' I ARRABIATTA, which miraculously was done reasonably well, the BURATINNA and MEDTERNEA pizzas were also ordered.

I did not think things could get worse but the chef showed his hand as to how bad he is...the Pizza base came wet, dough uncooked and I could barely stop my self gagging and choking after the first piece of the Mediterranea I picked the center of the pizza and watched as water escaped on what can only be described as boiled dough....the pesto thrown on top was not even heated and had not spread out, the sundried tomatoes were so dry they appeared to have gone through the process of being left in the Sahara for a further year... and had turned into what can best be described as the vegetarian BILTONG!

The same uncooked modus was presented on the second pizza subtracted from it was the tomato base which rather than cooked appeared to have been further watered down...

Trust me when I say there are at least 5 takeaway pizzerias in Edgware and Mascalzone would have actually done better to order the pizzas from any one of these...and could have done better than their current COOK (sorry I simply cannot call him a chef....I mean where did he get certified? Order by mail chef certification...)

Things began to fall really apart when we could not even get a glass of tap water for 25 minutes....either this place is understaffed, badly managed, badly trained staff..my conclusion it's worse...the worst possible combination of all three....

I finally got the attention of one of the waiterese's, quietly made my points only to be told ...it's not her problem, I added that they would get a bad review at which point she shrugged her shoulders and walked off ...

The young lady who had replaced the original uniformed waiter came to us and began to apologise at which point a lady dressed like the rest of the waiters turned up...and placed her self Infront of the younger lady and waved her off.

I asked if she was the manager as she actually pushed aside the young lady and looked ready for a fight and answered YES...I stated every thing to her and instead of apologising and doing some PR ...perhaps even discounting the food or providing a credit she simply nodded and grabbed the credit card machine and gave my receipt....we walked out disappointed dejacted and utterly revolted by the entire experience. I have reviewed a lot of places but this one really takes the crown as a tragic story of success to failure.

My advice is avoid Mascalzone at all costs unless you have...

RUINED MOTHERS DAY THANKS TO THE RUDE STAFF AND BRAINLESS MANAGER.

My husband and I went to Mascalzone to celebrate Mother's Day with my mum and mum-in-law, and our dads. The waitress with frizzy curly hair came to take our order, so we gave her our starters order. We hadn't decided our mains at this point as we wanted to have the starters first and then decide our mains afterwards. She wasn't shy to show her rude characteristics as she walked away from our table and said she'll come back when we have decided our mains. She refused to put our starters order until we decided our mains! Never been to a restaurant this ridiculous before. A better thing to say is take your time I'll put these through for now and come back for your mains, and explain why they needed the mains right away. When we asked why she needed both, she said they were too busy and therefore needed the entire order from the beginning. This was utter nonsense as half the restaurant was empty.

We asked for some chilli oil as both my parents and in-laws love spicy food and we wanted them to have their best day ever. When we asked for a top up and they told us they charge £5 for extra chilli oil and only give one free per table. This was the shocking as I understand charging for sauces like 'homemade pesto', but chopping up some chillies and sticking them in oil does NOT justify charging an extortionate £5, so we asked why they charge so much. The curly haired waitress started getting extremely rude at this point. When my husband calmly asked her "we are two families here, if we split the table we're technically 2 tables, can we then get one extra chilli oil" she downright ignored him. He asked why she didn't answer him, she kept ignoring him. At this point we decided their service is unacceptable and extremely RUDE!

When the bill came we said we do not want to pay the service charge. The man manager came over and started arguing with my husband and refusing to accept that we didn't want to pay the service charge. Firstly he should have come and asked us what the problem was. Instead he jumped to the conclusion that we were only upset about paying extra for the chilli oil, and then kept pushing us to pay the service charge and told us it's paying the staffs wages. My husband asked the manager if he isn't paying the staff well, and he didn't have a great response. Sorry but the UK has a legal minimum wage that must be paid to staff. We assumed that the manager isn't paying the legal minimum wage to his staff needs and therefore push customers to pay. This can turn into a legal issue for that man.

We are sad that this is how we ended mother's day on such a low all thanks to this atrocious man. Does he argue with all customers who ask to remove the OPTIONAL service charge I wonder. If the service was even fractionally satisfactory we wouldn't think twice about paying a service charge or leaving a tip. But if the head staff are rude, and then the manager wants to come and start yelling at us in front of all other diners, he is simply making a mockery of himself in front of everyone. The conversation between my husband and manager got very heated and it was frankly VERY awkward for our Mother's, the other Mother's in the restaurant and all other customers sitting around us.

The food here is average and there are MANY better Italian restaurants around Edgware and Finchley. Mascalzone isn't the first or the last restaurant, and they need to stop treating their customers with so much disrespect and realise the are not all that great and worth bragging about.

Never recommend it to...

Despite its name this isn't the place to go to get out of your face on cactus derived hallucinogens. Yes you probably guessed that but it really isn't the place to go for a nice friendly meal either.

I had come straight from work and was in such a good mood I ignored the waitresses lack of benevolence and picked up the the menu that was thrown across the table. I ordered an Americana pizza and inquired as to their list of beers. "We only have Pironi in a bottle or on draft" she told me. "That's okay" I said "I'll have a pint of draft please". "We only serve it in halves she replied" I smiled at the joke and again asked for a pint. It turns out that they serve their one beer in halves only!

Despite it being a quiet night a loud family of 4 was seated right next to me leaving the rest of the spacious restaurant echoing from the voices of diners past.

The pizza turned up and whilst being okay could have been a lot better. The base could have been a lot crispier, the tomato sauce could have been a lot more flavoursome and the pepperoni could have been a little fresher.

The pizza chef spent the whole of the time I was there singing along with endless Italian ballads in a very loud and tuneless warble. I carried on reading my book.

The waitress was eying my half a pint and as soon as it was nearly empty asked me if I wanted another. Seeing as I wanted a pint in the first place I eagerly accepted.

When the bill came I discovered my pint of lager had cost me £7.20. Yes, get off the floor, I know I felt the same. £7.20 a pint... In Edgware....

I complained but was told it was because I ordered two halves. I said "I wanted a pint" she said "I know we don't do it"

I won't be rushing back and I suggest you don't either

Dave...