Symposium – Natural Wine Bar, Bottle Shop & Italian Kitchen — Restaurant in London

They really hate gelato here, absolutely resent it.

I've no idea whether I was given gelato, sorbetto or sorbet but it was a as hard and miserable as the spatula used to chip it off. No elegant scoop here, but a wild angry stab of a miserly chefs spoon at rock hard confectionery. The anticipated pistachio was scraped in with all the elegance of the last bit of kebab meat from the pan and the hazelnuts almost spat out rather than sprinkled. Even the ancient Romans were more generous in salting the enemy's earth.

It's a shame because the place is otherwise really lively - I can see the quality of the produce on the plate and my nose confirms that this will be an otherwise excellent place to dine. The atmosphere of the crowd is what you expect from a decent Italian place and while I'm tempted to try a meal I just cannot fathom how you can cheap out on a simple gelato.

Two stars for the number of scoops you put into my triple. You can have the third when I get the missing scoop. The scraps don't count

Edit: despite the wordy response nothing is addressed. The gelato still has ice crystals in it (which means its been allowed to thaw before refreezing - a bad sign of chill chain custody). The name dropping too - no point in getting all that premium food if your staff are unable to get it into the freezer...

Visited Symposium, an Italian deli, with high hopes but left deeply disappointed. The prices were shockingly high, bordering on delusional, especially considering the quality of food we received. We were initially quoted £15 over the phone for 4 slices of pastiera for Easter, which already felt steep, but upon collection, my friend was charged an astonishing £43 for the pastiera slices, two packs of pasta, and three lucky saints. The pastiera, which we paid over £30 for, was mediocre at best and certainly not worth the price. It's disheartening to experience such disparity between price and quality, and the misleading information about pricing was particularly frustrating. I advise caution and recommend looking elsewhere to avoid these exorbitant and unjustifiable prices. It felt closer to a fraudulent practice than a genuine mistake. Please, save your money and avoid this deli.

My name is Giuseppe Leonello, as in the name in google. I am not sure whether the owner's reference to not posting my name was a threat, in any case the response from the owner is very concerning including the defensiveness and the aggressive attitude. I am very sad about the experience...

Update: we had a lovely dinner at Symposium more recently. Thanks :)

We’ve been to Symposium twice and the experience has been inconsistent for different reasons each time. 1st visit: before the pandemic. Food was okay. The salt level in the food was very variable, a bit high in the dishes I had. 2nd visit recently: Food was excellent but there was some confusion about our wine order. We ordered a bottle of the house white (which we did not get: the wait staff gave us a more expensive bottle compared to the price on the menu, without clarifying this). We were then told that they would pour out two glasses for us since the bottle was not chilled enough for serving. But at the end of the meal we were charged for the bottle and also the two additional glasses of wine, which is not what we wanted or ordered - even though we raised both of these issues with the waitresses. (The waitresses were lovely - but mistakes like these made the meal about £25+service more expensive than we intended.) We could have refused to pay the service charge but I felt that the hospitality industry needs customers. Will our third visit be error-free? It will be some time...