Villa Bianca — Restaurant in London

Dishonest manager and staff! Absolutely terrible experience! Not recommended! Incompetent and unwilling chef. We, husband and wife, went for dinner on 15th May to celebrate an event. It started well with the very pleasant host being welcoming and hospitable. 5* for her exclusively. The waiter suggested a special, Caesar salad with chicken, which we ordered. My wife explained to him that she wanted the chicken grilled and hot in the salad. When the salad arrived, the chicken strips were white and cold. No sign of them being grilled. Salad was returned and my soup had to go back too. Second salad arrived after a good wait of over 25 minutes, during which time we were not offered any on-the-spot replacement. Same as first one, so it was also returned. We were about to leave because clearly the chef was not willing to make the salad as requested by us and we were both hungry and very frustrated by the wait. The manager came and asked how we wanted the salad made, in particular how we wanted the chicken grilled. We were in disbelief that we needed to tell him to butterfly the chicken breast and place it on the grill until nicely brownish. He insisted we stay. At the same time, I told him that there were differences in price between the Menu and the display in front of the restaurant, but he laughingly dismissed my claim. Finally the salad and my soup arrived, after more than 40 minutes wasted waiting. There was no proper apology from the manager for the wait or indeed for the messy salad for which we had to provide the recipe. Instead, he kept saying that this was a 'special' and the chef was not really experienced (however, the price was quite high, at £12) and that 'there are different interpretations' of Caesar salad. We thought his customer service skills were absolutely appalling. For the main we ordered some potatoes as a side dish and asked whether we could have roasted potatoes. We were told 'yes'. When the potatoes arrived they were in fact potato slices fried in the frying pan. Again we were mislead, and again the chef did not comply with our order. On the bill, the manager had the nerve to charge us the higher prices from the Menu, not the lower ones displayed outside. As I had had enough of his unprofessionalism and arrogance, I asked him to change the bill to reflect the prices advertised outside, not the inflated ones from the Menu. Continuing with his appalling arrogance, he told me that he had done us a favour by 'REMOVING' the service charge from the bill. I promptly reminded him that the 'service charge is discretionary'. The whole dining experience was totally horrible and the manager's awful and inexcusable behaviour only exacerbated it. In my experience, restaurants try to rectify any mishaps like the many we had by offering a discount on the final bill(not an inflated one!), a free desert/vine, etc. Not in this case. Our celebration was completely ruined at this restaurant and we do not recommend it. Mr...

We went to this restaurant to celebrate Valentine's Day. It was very busy. The beginning of the service was nice - and the food was really good, albeit quite expensive. However, after waiting half an hour for them to clear our table of our mains, the service completely stopped after that: no-one came to see how we were doing, no-one came to offer us a drink, and no-one came by to ask if we wanted dessert. The place clearly got busy, and we could barely see a waiter around to wave to them. Even though we could see tables around with their beautiful desserts and free lemoncello. We were enjoying the atmosphere waiting for someone to come by so we could order dessert and benefit from the same treatment. But out of the blue, a woman (who hadn't even served us) came by and without saying a thing put the bill on the table! I responded that we'd like to actually order dessert, and we hadn't asked for the bill. She left, and another woman came back - rude as hell, telling us 'I know you didn't ask for the bill but your allocated slot is over, you have to leave' WHAT? no-one served us! if you want us to leave within an allocated slot 1) remind us about it 2) make sure your staff gives us a full service (I paid 160 pounds for my dinner, I deserve the right and full service). After letting her know that it was clearly not our fault - she would not have it, shrugged, didn't apologise, told her 'you can see its very busy' and waited for us to make the payment an leave. No 'I'm sorry' , no 'Here's a dessert on the house for the next visit', nothing. This completely ruined our Valentine's Day evening. If you're going to give your customers a slot to be able to get more business, you have to make sure you're actually able to handle that business. Otherwise, don't force your customers out the door!

I would have at least expected some sort of commercial gesture for...

When you live in a place for a while it is easy and perhaps inevitable that you fall into bad habits: waiting to order the same drink in the same understaffed pub as a crush of tourists sip halves of London Pride by the bar; queueing for ages on a Saturday morning to buy the same loaf of bread from the same posh bakery as people waiting for their coffee to be made; not talking to the charity guy on the high street because he insists on calling you "young man/woman". Following a delicious lunch at the weekend, I now realise that not going to Villa Bianca was a deeply regrettable habit that gradually encrusted itself on our lives in NW3. In the two decades we have called Hampstead home, I think we have been there once, back in the mists of time when the high street boasted more places to buy clothes than have your nails done. So long ago that I had forgotten just how good this place is and how comfily reassuring "old school" is. And Villa Bianca is the definition of "old school": no £20 credit card charge to guarantee your table, just a phone call on the morning of your booking to make sure you are actually going to turn up, delicious Italian food served up with a sparkling efficiency that left our party slightly slack jawed (starters that all arrived at the same time! not waiting 25 minutes for mains!!! friendly without being overly intrusive!!!!!). Okay, if you order meat or fish you pay West End prices. But they cook lemon sole like their lives depend on it, the pasta dishes are perfection on a plate and even the filter coffee is good. If you live in Hampstead or the surrounds and haven't been to VB in a while, go. If you haven't been to VB, go. It's a wee gem. (And by the way, the maître d' belts out a damn good version of...