Quattordici Italian Restaurant | Chislehurst — Restaurant in London

The last time we visited this restaurant was before the pandemic when, after opting for a seafood dish, my wife suffered an awful episode of food poisoning. We informed the restaurant but our complaint, although acknowledged, has never really been properly managed or rectified. Mainly for this reason we steered away from visiting for years... Fast forward to last night when we decided to give the restaurant another go. The alarm bell should have started ringing when the waitress brought out the bread basket. Dining out in an Italian restaurant, you would expect that the bread is one of the many Italian kinds, accompanied by good quality extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette. Nope. The bread (unidentifiable, what kind) was on the stale side and we had to ask the waitress to bring the condiments. When she did, we received olive oil that looked closer to cooking vegetable oil on our plate (pale, almost see-through) and tasted exactly like that. We should have brought some of our own extra virgin olive oil we usually buy from Lidl... We ordered the scallops as a starter. Surprisingly, they leave the roe on (the orange reproductive organ) which is probably a matter of taste - in most restaurants it is removed for aesthetic reasons and to help the dish achieve a more neutral (less seafood-like) and sweet taste. The scallops however, even with the roe on, were on the smaller side and after just a bite it became alarmingly obvious that they weren't fresh. So much so that my wife had to spit the last one back on her plate as the flavour was so off that it triggered a small gagging reflex. When we were asked how the starter was, against my wife's objections, I told the waitress that the last scallop was probably off, to which she answered with a poker face (no apology) "Let me get someone.". Another lady appeared a minute later to whom I repeated my observation. She offered an apology and considered the case concluded. For mains I had the linguine quattordici which is, on paper, a pasta dish with king prawns and a garlicky-tomato sauce and rocket salad. The king prawns were, again, toward the small size (peasant rather than king) and the pasta sauce was so bland that I had to use the salt mill twice. My wife had the skate wing and a very similar experience: it was lacking salt or any particular flavour. This has put us off from ordering desserts, paid the bill and left, hoping for an undisturbed night sleep. In the car we concluded that I would have cooked a better Italian meal using a recipe from...

As we came in we was walked through the restaurant and was sat out the back in a covered garden area with a family of kids running around, as we was here for a date night we would have preferred to be sat in the actual restaurant, the lady took my coat and hung it up which was lovely, a few seconds later the kids in this area kept grabbing my coat and playing with it on the hanger, which we then asked to move tables to sit inside, we was moved quickly and the waiter bought out drinks over quickly and read us out all the options and specials, he was very knowledgeable. Our food was lovely and came out quickly, I had ordered another drink before my main came but they forgot and I had to ask again for it and it didn’t come until I had finished my main. They took our finished mains away at 7:45, we didn’t get noticed or given a menu or couldn’t get anyones attention until 8:25 we had been sitting there with no drinks the whole time, I got the lady’s attention and we was given the dessert menus but then again couldn’t get anyones attention to order desserts so we gave up at this point, the man from the beginning finally came back and we asked for the bill, he had forgot and about 20 mins later I asked another lady and told her this had been ridiculous and she said “the staff are all new and don’t know what there doing” we finally got the bill and left. Was a shame as the food here is nice but was a complete wasted evening considering we wanted to have quite a few drinks and enjoy our time here, we got a cab here but could have just drove and saved our money if we knew we knew couldn’t actually order and drinks. Won’t be...

My dad treated my sister and I to a Christmas meal just before lockdown and I have to say we were very disappointed.

We entered the restaurant for our reservation at 6pm and were left standing there for 10minutes as they could not find our booking (which was booked well in advanced), not only were we waiting for them to sort this issue we were told continuously that we only had a 2 hour slot, we completely understand the rules and current situation however to be continuously told this while waiting to be seated due to an error by the restaurant and with many empty tables we already felt rushed and unwelcome.

We finally sat down and the service was poor, again rushed, there was no conversation just a constant need to top up our wine, my dad and sister went for the special which was steak and they were very disappointment with there bland meals.

Overall with the prices you set, customers should expect a warm welcome and enjoyable meal, I believe your staff may require some more training around customer service. We are the easiest people to please and the service we received in this restaurant was just unacceptable and...