Peppe's Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Malvern Hills

The restaurant used to be called Benedicto's which caused a lot of confusion for myself and my boyfriend when we were visiting Malvern (April 2018) and looking for it. We decided on the restaurant due to the TripAdvisor reviews but at the time the name change had not been updated on there nor on Google Maps. Ended up having to ask the locals for directions who let us know the name had changed and we'd be walking past it many times! Now that the name change has been properly fixed I can now confidently leave a review.

All the decor and lightning appropriately says, "I am an Italian restaurant", but it contains an authentic, homely feel. Other large Italian restaurants don't feel genuine like this one does and go for cookie cutter Italian stereotypes without any 'heart'.

It took a little while for us to be seen to, despite it being quiet with not many customers in. Once we were seated the service was exemplary from start to finish. The server even recognised that I was speaking Portuguese and we ended up having a conversation about our home countries.

Now for the star of the show, the food! Best Italian food I've had the pleasure of scoffing down. I'm boring and always get simple dishes like carbonara but that day I felt I needed to try something different so I got the penne pasta with the courgettes (you'll see it in the photos I posted). It was so, so good I can't describe it.

The dessert was nicely presented, visually pleasing and it tasted as good as it looked. I left the restaurant with a spring in my step,...

I rarely criticise restaurants but this was a birthday meal. Communication in advance was too late to arrange what I asked for.The food quality was unfortunately poor.I think the restaurant should question the quality of its fish supplier.My husband' s pasta was bland/ tasteless and we left after one course..

In response to your feedback today. There are several inaccuracies.The response I received to my request was received on the day we were travelling to Great Malvern not 24 hours in advance.I asked if either you could make a small cake or if I could bring one.The reply was ambiguous. Literally that is OK! We did not say the fish was frozen.We asked if it was because it was the worst I' ve ever eaten.We heard your waitress ask the chef if it was frozen at our request. He replied that it wasn" t. We have noticed that you reply very defensively to to any criticism.That is really poor customer service.You said to my husband' s review that you wanted detailed feedback to help you improve.That is clearly not the case! When this is your response to honest feedback, with no ulterior motive, to a very disappointing special occasion. then you really need to review your approach to customer care and feedback. This is the only negative review of a restaurant we have ever...

I'm Italian, so I'm particularly sorry to give this review but they need to improve on the food side. I ordered some 'cozze alla Tarantina" = mussels. They were overcooked to the point that the mussels was chewy and flavourless. The parmigiana and pasta alle verdure were okay, as in decent but nothing to write home about. The "pollo alla valdostana" was a pice of harboiled, rubbery, flavourless breast chicken. Such a shame. The staff was very friendly, welcoming and attentive.

Reply to the owner: I didn’t eat all the mussels, I left some behind. However my mum taught me to clear the plate, so unless inedible, I will always force myself to try to finish. My husband is like me. The issue is that when waiters ask if everything is okay, not everyone feels comfortable in making a point by point report, and if you do you then get seen like one of those trying to get a free meal. Which we certainly are not. Instead of taking offence, I suggest you use feedbacks to improve your standards. I could have given a 1 star review if I was one of "those" people, but I'm not and I was...