Venchi — Restaurant in London

Shocking experience here. Long queue outside so had high expectations yet Roberta provided the rudest hospitality experience I have ever encountered.

I ordered a classic shake and was told I could choose two of my own flavours but had to pay before I chose my flavours/received the product - not normally a problem. I asked for vanilla and I was told this ice cream was all finished and to choose another flavour although I couldn’t taste any others and wasn’t offered a refund as the flavour I asked for wasn’t there. They told me to pick another flavour without tasting it as mentioned and started making my shake although I was very disappointed as I didn’t particularly want any other flavour but didn’t seem to have a choice. Then the customer next to me asked for vanilla and was told there may be some in the back so they would check, and was also allowed to taste other flavours whilst waiting to make an informed choice. Roberta then returned with vanilla ice cream and when I pointed out that was the flavour I wanted and was told wasn’t available, Roberta said I had to stick to my secondary choice and couldn’t make any changes. I explained that I was told there was no vanilla and that was obviously proven wrong so it was unfair it was brought out for others and not me, and Roberta rolled her eyes and said I made my choices. I reiterated my point and Roberta said she was ‘busy’ so couldn’t look in the back for me explained that she told her colleague it was finished because the fridge was too full of ice cream so she didn’t have time to look - yet could a few seconds later for the next customer! It didn’t make sense to me so I then said I wanted a vanilla shake as originally requested as I don’t think the reasoning was fair or justifiable at all. Roberta then stopped acknowledging me, completely blanked me out, and just spoke to her colleague saying ‘just do it then’ huffing and puffing about my request. No eye contact, no apology, no acknowledgement of correcting the mistake, no proper explanation as to why there was such differentiated treatment. It was the hottest day of the year and it is poor form if a shop which sells gelato cannot maintain basic standards because it is ‘busy’.

Staff need retraining....

Delicious icecream. Edit 17 June We are loyal customers and visit this Venchi often. Today is the first time we have been extremely apalled at the customer service. This store closes at 10pm, we arrived at 9.40pm and queued for 15 minutes (it's always busy). At 9.55pm, when we're directly outside the store about to enter, we were cut off by a lady who was working there, telling us we wouldn't be served. She let the people in front of us go in, but not us or the people behind us. She claimed the staff were not going to finish in time if she let us in, but the people in front were fine. We drove 30 minutes to get there, then waited a further 15 minutes. This is extremely unprofessional. She did not apologize, and was very blunt. How can you treat your customers like this? We understand staff want to finish on time, but you should have at the minimum told us immediately and not let us waste a further 15minutes queueing up. Secondly, be nice about it, being so rude and dismissive was absolutely disgraceful, you showed zero empathy when we clearly told you we made a 30mins journey to get here. Everything comes down to customer service. Though the icecream is delicious, maybe even the best. This particular incident has let us forever down. Whomever you are lady, dark skinned with black hair, we will be leaving a complaint. And we will be taking our...

I'm from Italy and Venchi is a well known Italian brand, specially because of chocolate (they're amazing!). When I saw the shop I was wondering if it was the real Italian one or just someone pretending to be like that. The answer? It's a piece of Italy... here in London!

Cleanliness: 5/5 stars, super extra clean and tidy.

Quality of products: 5/5 stars, real Italian ice-cream and chocolate. There's quality and quantity... it's the paradise specially for chocoholics. We had nice ice-cream/gelato: not too much sugary (it doesn't make you thirsty) and deliciously flavoured. We couldn't have/drink there the Italian style hot thick chocolate because they use the machine mainly in wintertime. However, Roberta (real Italian and super pleasant person) showed us other options and we were super happy because the following morning we prepared a tasty and delicious hot thick chocolate at home thanks to her: nice breakfast, couldn't start the day in a better way.

Quality of service: 5/5 stars, outstanding/amazing! Well done, keep up with the good job :)

Our experience: thanks to Venchi and to Roberta, for a moment we felt like being in Italy. We can't wait to come back to visit you!

See you... very...