ASK Italian - Manchester — Restaurant in Manchester

Had a meal here yesterday and I am not one to be fussy or denounce underpaid service staff who work hard for a living. However myself and my girlfriend both agreed that the service here was bizarre and disappointing.

FOOD

The food here is moderatly nice, one of our starters was a little burnt but not to the point of being inedible. Overall I would describe it as similar to pizza express in price, but slightly worse in quality. One thing I will mention - I had the calzone and it came on a plastic tray type thing. Felt cheap and made the food go cold quite quick.

SERVICE

My main gripe and reason for writing this review is the weird service we experienced. It almost felt like it was every servers first week, or they were poorly managed. No one was overly rude, just not aware or slightly incompetent.

We were seated and our orders were taken no problem.

Half way through our starters a server came and took a plate off our table, but this had the bowl of sauce on for the course. So my girlfriend finished half her starter without the bowl of sauce.

When our mains came out, no one brought us any new cutlery. All the previous cultery had been taken away with our starters. We were sat there staring at hot food. 2 minutes went by and we asked a server fir a knife and fork. He either didnt understand us or didnt hear us and said 'yeah sure' but then went over to the bar and continued collecting drinks. After watching him not get us cutlery for another few minutes I had to go to an unused table and pinch some cutlery.

We finished our mains and plates were taken away and the server did ask if we enjoyed it, but didnt ask if we'd like something else. We had a bit of time before we needed to be somewhere else in Manchester so agreed we would have another drink in there. However, no one came and asked us if we wanted a dessert. It was very strange it seemed like we had just been forgotten about. after waiting we decided to just get the bill.

We also witnessed other tables getting offered pepper and parmesan with their food. However we weren't offered any. whether it was the food we ordered not sure.

It is annoying to recieve this weird service because we were seated right by the bar and could see all thr servers getting drinks from the bar / hanging around there when they had a free moment. But it seemed like a lot of staff were working. Probably 9 or 10 along with 2 managers. In a restaurant that was half empty. It was 1630 on a saturday afternoon, and may get busier in the early evening. But felt like there were loads of staff and yet it was so hard to get ones attention.

The last strange experience was when we asked for the bill a server brought it to us. We were grateful and chatted while waiting for the card machine, and then a different server came to our table and asked us if we had ordered our food?

The staff werent rude, or lazy. However they did all seem to not quite be on the ball. Its annoying as just all the small little details add up. I wasnt expecting michelin star treatment - just cutlery and the opportunity to...

I usually go to another well known Italian chain beginning with 'Z' just across the Gardens but thought I'd give this place a try as it's in a great people-watching location and the menu has a broad selection and is fairly reasonable. I was seated fairly quickly but this is where problems began. My drink order was taken very quickly and arrived promptly but it took half an hour for someone to take my food order, I had to ask the manager who happened to be seating a couple next to me. I ordered the Stuffed Mushrooms as a starter and the Sea Bass for my main course. The mushrooms looked good when they arrived but were only cooked on the top and were raw, tough and tasteless underneath. I asked for some black pepper which arrived when I'd practically finished! After waiting another half an hour for my main course, it was a bit more edible but unseasoned and bland. It also looked like a mess in the bowl. At this point I think it was obvious I wasn't enjoying my lunch so I paid fairly quickly and left.

Overall, the service team are incredibly friendly and very good at what they do, but sadly let down by a lack of attention to detail and forgetting about the odd thing here and there. The produce on its own is really good, but again, seriously compromised by laziness and an apparent lack of enthusiasm by the team in the kitchen - That main course looked awful!

I appreciate it was a busy Saturday afternoon, and maybe I caught them on a bad day, but a couple of things did stand out on my visit. First, managers need to 'manage' and oversee their people rather than constantly 'mucking in' so there's no oversight. Next, the kitchen team need a bit of a kick because quality control seems to have disappeared out of the window. The manager took the mushrooms off my bill but I won't consider dining here again unless I'm reassured these two fundamental problems...

I had some Tesco clubcard points to use so opted for a rewards partner voucher for Ask Italian, as we hadn't been here before. I probably picked the busiest day possible in the area (oops!) - a massive crowd outside the door was watching the UEFA Women’s EURO 2022 final on a big screen in Manchester city centre. Squeezing our way through to the restaurant, we were greeted warmly by a host at the door and indoors was actually pleasantly quiet (I think most were outside watching the big screen). The food was good, service impeccable, and a lovely meal out all in all.

We shared a starter (Chicken Lecca-Lecca - Breaded chicken fillets served with a spicy tomato dip and garlic mayo). That was beautifully cooked - juicy, crispy and tender, well flavoured. We had a pasta dish each for mains (Penne Pollo Della Casa - Seasoned chicken breast, mushrooms and pasta baked in a creamy mushroom and white wine sauce and Linguine con Frutti di Mare - King prawns, mussels, clams and squid in a rich tomato sauce). Both pleasant, though possibly could've done with a bit more seasoning. Also sadly no clams in sight in my pasta dish, but there was plenty of everything else, portions were good and the prawns were gorgeous. I would lose one star (half if I could) purely down to the lack of clams and seasoning on the mains.

For dessert my partner enjoyed the Biscoff cheesecake (delish - I pinched a bite) and I opted for a cappuccino.

All in all a...