Pepos — Restaurant in London

We were a table of 9 and spent over £400. The service wasn't great. Initially only 5 out of the 9 of us were asked for drinks. We then had to ask for the rest of the drinks order to be taken. We ordered a white wine and were given a red. My husband wasn’t asked for his drink order at all. Starters came out at different intervals. 2 meatballs were very different in appearance and quantity of sauce. Got sent a calamari which we didn’t order but 1 of the 2 meatballs came at least 5 mins after the 1st. Main courses - aubergine parmagiana was burnt and inedible and I was told it would take at least 15 mins to make another so I changed for a different pasta dish which seemed rushed - thin creamy sauce and very al dente (almost undercooked) pasta. We asked for the chicken to come with chips instead of mash. It came with mash and they apologised and said they forgot so the chips were on the side. My nephew doesn’t like mash so therefore ate very little of the chicken as it was sat on the mash. The veal came and was served with nothing else on the plate and we were then asked who ordered a side of mash - it was part of the veal dish. The salad and the aubergine were served at least 5 mins after everything else but I couldn’t eat the aubergine as it was burnt. The 2nd drinks order came out as 3 drinks and then a coke was forgotten and had to be reminded again. We also only ordered 4 puddings - 2 came out together and then 2 sorbets came to the table after the first 2 puddings had been eaten. Why does it take an extra 10 mins to serve a scoop of sorbet?? The food (apart from the aubergine) was tasty but the service generally wasn’t great and for a meal that cost over £400 I would...

The portions of food were small. I ordered a bread platter starter and it was not was I was expecting, definitely not Italian. More like cut up square pieces of oven toasted Turkish- -Greek bread, and what would appear to be mega thin slices of cut up bread, not sure what it was to be honest. The “ Italian Scillian Olives” as described in the menu, were basic large green brine olives, not tasty or beautifully marinated as expected. I ordered gnocchi and when it arrived, it was tepid and not hot, it was served on a cold plate and not enough sauce to go with it. All our hot food was served on cold plates. There was nowhere to hang coats. Where there is an open kitchen area,, the smell of cooking is in the ambiance, massively noticeable, when we left the restaurant, the smell of food was lingering on our clothes. The house Red wine was very pleasant. We asked to speak to the manager to give some feedback, we mentioned the lack of a cloak room facilities to which she said that they had no room for that. The premises is Huge! I’m sure the can afford to put one in. My first experience? Not too good. Several of our local residents have been and their experiences have been negative. I gave it the benefit of the doubt. Let’s hope they improve. They could do well by learning from the other well established restaurants. Oh and being Italians, I did not hear one word of spoken Italian coming...

Have to say that Ive been wanting to try this restaurant since it opened as I love Italian and go to Marcus in Enfield which is truly authentic and nearly always fully booked. I really wanted this restaurant to be good as its local to me. We hadn't planned to go here on the day but was looking for an early lunch and a member of our group wanted pizza. We ordered 2 pizzas and a lasagne. The vegetarian lasagne although tasty was swimming in oil. But the pizzas were rather disappointing. Mine in particular had a very soggy middle. The pizzas have a very thin base which is great, but because of the tomato sauce which soaked through the centre it did not properly cook. I guess the oven may not have been hot enough. My disappointment was further compounded by the comment from the waiter... when asked how the food was I told him about my soggy pizza... his response was ' that's how we make them here' ! Well if that's the case then perhaps your menu should say pizzas are cooked soggy in the middle! Ridiculous!! And I so wanted this restaurant to be good!! There are so many other rave reviews about the other dishes. Should I give it another chance and just avoid...