Taberna Etrusca — Restaurant in London

The restaurant looks great from outside and we had a warm welcome and were given lovely seats in the courtyard.

The menu informed us that there is a £5 surcharge to all pasta main courses if you don't have a starter too. I was hungry anyway so ordered the bruschetta to share. It was very good.

For our mains we had the monkfish, served in amalfi lemon and caper sauce with lots of broccoli on the side and the mushroom penne with sun-blushed tomatoes, wilted greens and wild mushrooms.

We also ordered a bottle of pinot gris.

The fish was tasty but the flavour was one-dimensional.

The pasta was truly awful and lacked anything that could be described as flavour. The mushrooms were sliced very thin and lacked substance. The greens were watery and the three cherry tomatoes had been steamed to death. The pasta was Al dente but poorly salted.

Neither meal was finished.

The warm wine was served with a chilling collar that arrived with the waiter's hand inside, so it wasn't very cold either. We had to ask for ice to make the wine bearable.

We served the wine ourselves, apart from the last glass that the waiter served before taking away the bottle despite its not being empty.

We asked for the bill and that took more than 8 minutes to arrive, despite the restaurant not being busy.

A 12.5% service charge had been added to the bill, making this one of the more expensive bad eating-out experiences to be had in this...

I had gone with my colleagues for lunch. I am a vegetarian and so was one of my colleagues who was visiting the country for the first time. I told 3 restaurant attendants that two of us are vegetarians and asked for veg recommendations. We ordered vegetarian pasta as suggested. In spite of all the discussion, the waiter served a non veg pasta to us which was an order for another table. Imagine one being allergic to something and telling the restaurant and still being served the dish with the same allergen, I could have very well died there! I only realised being served a non veg dish after another waiter came to the table saying here is your order and I told I have already been served which is when they realised I have been served incorrect dish!! The manager came to me and was smiling all the while trying to apologise. He said sorry ‘it happened by mistake, can only say sorry’!! None of us at the table really saw a hint of apology in his tone.. It was an horrendous experience, my religious and moral values were breached. Never going...

We booked into Taberna Etrusca using Taste Card mid week for some dinner, no problems with that and all was well.

In terms of the service, the staff were very attentive (almost to the point of rushing you) and even allowed me to charge my phone as we ate dinner...again, no problems there.

The food is the reason I won't be coming back to this restaurant anytime soon...very bland, not particularly exciting and didn't look great on the plate either. The shell on prawns I had tasted absolutely awful (yes I had removed the shells) and I anticipated having a dodgy stomach on the way home. Fortunately this wasn't the case, nevertheless I won't forget the taste, they truly tasted horrendous.

I'm not sure what to recommend to the restaurant to get this remedied, however being London you have plenty of other dining...