Nonnos Pizza (Crouch End) — Restaurant in London

Booked months in advance for Christmas Eve, because it’s become a tradition for a few years in a row. Requested a specific table but it was given away on the day.

It took 20 mins to take our order and another 30 mins for drinks to arrive. Had to remind the staff. When drinks arrived, some were missing. Had to chase twice to get our drinks order correct.

The waiter wasn’t trained (probably covering for Christmas Eve to be fair). Had to repeat or ordering 3 times before he grasped it. Had to return to the table twice to check orders afterwards.

Ordered prawns which we asked to be served without shells (we had elderly guests with us who find it difficult to de-shell because of arthritic hands). When the food came, it had shells, we queried with the restaurant and the kitchen refused to help because they were too busy.

After starters were cleared we had to ask twice for fresh cutlery.. That’s nitpicking but the poor service just kept adding up.

Mains took over an hour to come after starters were cleared. Carbonara was return to the kitchen because it was swimming in puddle of olive oil. Seabass was inedible, absolutely covered in salt and was returned, seabass was replaced but veg was stone cold when plate was returned - meal ruined at point and everyone else was finished.

The dishes which were returned to the kitchen were removed from the bill. I expressed that I wasn’t happy because of the above reasons and the manager told us to call the police if we weren’t happy about paying. (That message was relayed by one of the servers because the manager was not in the restaurant and was contacted by phone). Left very dissatisfied.

To add insult to injury a waitress knocked a glass of wine over when clearing which went all of my trousers, that’s an honest mistake, but no apology or offer to replace the drink. Did not even provide a napkin to help clear up.

All in all the two courses took 3 hours.

Been coming here for years and the food and service is getting progressively worse. I will definitely not...

After enjoying a really lovely meal at Nonno’s pizza with my husband and my dog, with great service and great food, I was really excited to bring my close friends here for dinner this weekend.

We began with a drinks order after 15-20 minutes of perusing the menu and getting excited by our choices. We settled on choosing a bottle of Pinot Grigio to go nicely with the prawn dishes we’d decided to order.

The waiter asked to see ID, we are not used to having to do this anymore and had a little chuckle, being too many years since this question has been asked. For context, we are all late 20s, early 30s.

One of my friends only had a photograph of her passport and because of this, we were refused a bottle of wine. When questioned the waiter was very rude and patronising, and continuously said ‘do you not know the law? Its challenge 25’. We tried to contest, explaining our jobs, showing work ID and making a logical case for why we wouldn’t be out dining with an under-18 - considering the rest of us produced ID to say we are all 28-33, but the waiter refused to see reason. They said that my friend could not have wine in the restaurant because she could not produce a hard copy ID.

The people on all the tables around us were shaking their heads at the ridiculousness of the scenario - including the chefs by the pizza oven.

This unreasonable and patronising service, rudeness and a refusal to serve a group of people who were very clearly well over the legal drinking age is not acceptable. I have never been asked for ID at a restaurant, and this is not somewhere like the USA where adults of all ages are expected to carry ID.

I feel so embarrassed, having convinced my friends to travel from East London for a lovely dining experience at Nonnos but receiving the total opposite. It is such a great shame considering my first experience of the restaurant was so positive. As a local I had been excited by this restaurant, but due to this experience, I don’t feel I could go back again nor recommend...

No No to Nonnos

Our food was average. Not bad pizzas, not great and a bit pricy for the quality (I accept prices are going up.) Our friend said her risotto was good.

What really let Nonno’s down was the woeful service. The vegetariana pizza contains ‘seasonal vegetables’, I asked what these were and the waitress said she didn’t know. After an obvious pause she said she would go and ask the chef. She came back and said that the seasonal vegetables were “artichoke, aubergine, spinach..” and then she started mumbling. I asked her to repeat what she had said and she said that she had forgotten what the chef told her. I ordered a different pizza.

The pizzas were left sitting on the pass for a few minutes. Neither the staff nor the pizza chef seemed too bothered.

The music was ramped up while we were there and we had to ask for it to be turned down.

When we finished eating, the two staff members glanced across a few times but made no effort to clear the plates away. We waited about 15 minutes and then moved two of the plates to the space by the pizza oven where they sat until after we left. We put our other two plates on the empty table next to us. They sat there until a couple arrived who were seated before the plates could be cleared away. The waitress then cleared around the dirty plates and took them away leaving cleaning fluid all over the table. The couple walked out.

We were never asked if we wanted dessert although by that time we had had enough. We had to get up to ask for the bill. After it arrived, we had to ask for a card machine to be brought to us. After we paid and were getting ready to put coats on, we were asked if we would like a Limoncello.

At no point did anyone ask if everything was okay. Instead, one of the staff who had spent the evening ignoring us stood on the street grinning and thanked us for coming.

We won’t be back. We were ignored for most of the evening and it wasn’t exactly busy. Nonno’s has just opened – surely they can do...