Zucchini Pasta Bar — Restaurant in Newcastle upon Tyne

The worst bottomless experience I’ve ever had! We arrived on time for the booking I made for my birthday to be told they couldn’t seat us for 20 minutes and we’re told to stand in the doorway, all 13 of us. When seated it took the staff 40 minutes to come take any drinks orders putting us an hour into our bottomless slot. From here the service went even more down hill. When we tried to order cocktails there would be 30+ minute waits on them with the staff often forgetting we’d even ordered at all. We were told they couldn’t serve us certain cocktails included in the bottomless offering despite serving them to the table next to us that ordered after. There was multiple occasions where I was left without a drink at all for 20+ minutes even though I’d ordered twice, when the cocktails did come they tasted like pure water when I questioned this we were told the waitresses had just been trained and didn’t know how to make the drinks which is not what you want to hear for £32 a head. Our friend who paid full price for the mock tails option received 1 mock tail during the entire duration of our visit despite ordering more. The food took well over an hour to arrive. When our food did arrive there was a small metal screw in one of the girls meals which we brought up to the wait staff only to be dismissed with well the chef doesn’t have a piercing before she walked off as if it couldn’t have come from anywhere in the kitchen. I asked for a to go box for my carbonara and garlic bread and when I arrived home I opened the box to find a penne which I’m assuming was somebody else’s meal. When I brought this up during my complaint over email they tried to shame me for questioning the decision to give me an different meal entirely from the one I paid for and claimed they had made it fresh instead of giving me my meal even though they were closed at the time of us leaving. I highly doubt this as it wasn’t a full portion, they didn’t mention that they’d made me a new meal at all when they handed me the bag and they declined to show the CCTV of them making the fresh meal despite previously referencing their CCTV to check how long we were waiting for drinks. When we asked for a discount they told us they couldn’t do that and we’d have to pay full price and take it up with head office. When we eventually got to speak to head office they offered £4.20 off each and we had to haggle with them to get them to agree to a £7.50 refund. The whole experience put a massive dampener on what should have been a lovely birthday with friends most of which had travelled to Newcastle for, I sincerely doubt we...

I’ve been to this restaurant several times and always paid full price, never once caused trouble — which makes what happened last Saturday all the more insulting.

We ordered three dishes. All of them were aggressively over-salted to the point of being physically uncomfortable to eat. But since we were starving at the time being, we managed to push through, assuming it might ease with a few more bites. It didn’t. The chicken pasta was downright offensive. Not seasoned — just soaked in sodium.

I politely flagged this to the staff. I said we didn’t want to waste food and had tried our best to eat it, but that the dish was fundamentally flawed. The response? No accountability. The plates were swiftly taken away without a word — not to help, but to remove the evidence.

I was then met with the most cowardly kind of pushback: a quiet implication that since we’d eaten part of the meal, we must be lying — just looking for a discount. This is what they think of returning customers: people to feed, distrust, and discard.

They did apologise — but only in form, not in substance. There was no acknowledgment that anything might have been wrong with the dish. No one checked, no one tasted, and no one asked what went wrong. Just a scripted sorry, and an even quieter suggestion that the fault must lie with us, since we finished most of it.

That’s not an apology. That’s a polite accusation.

If this is how you treat regulars who speak up calmly, I can only imagine how you treat those who don’t know how to push back. You may survive on foot traffic for now, but restaurants that gaslight their customers don’t stay full for long.

Reply： Thank you for the reply — it says a lot, just not what you think it does.

I’m not sure what’s more disappointing: • The fact that two chefs allegedly tasted the same dish and failed to notice it was wildly overseasoned, • Or the fact that your idea of hospitality is to calculate the percentage of food left on a plate as evidence that a customer must be lying.

“It’s nice to be nice” — ironic, coming from a restaurant that would rather protect its salt levels than its reputation.

I gave calm, measured feedback in person. You gave me policy, deflection, and now a passive-aggressive lecture.

You didn’t lose a customer because the dish was salty. You lost one because you made it clear — in your kitchen, and in your reply — that being right matters more than doing right.

Good luck...

Firstly, we’ve been eating here since the restaurant first opened and always had good experiences. Eating out here last Saturday afternoon [11th February] could only be described as rahter strange.

Upon on entering we greeted by a not-so-friendly member of staff (large set balding guy) and were allocated seats near the door. We politely asked if we could be seated away from the door as it gets cold and the restaurant only looked at half capacity. We were informed that all the other seats were reserved for 45 minutes time so we took the seats on offer near to the door.

We waited a long time to order food, and in the end had to ask the same unconcerned waiter, who seemed intent on ignoring us, if we could order. He said “yeah, in a little” then walked off. Took orders at another two tables and then took food to various tables.

Eventually he arrives to take our order, we ordered two pastas and a garlic bread and asked if the garlic bread (advertised as a side) could arrive with the pastas (we were both on a break and didn’t have much free time). He said “it’ll arrive when its ready” and needless to say, the garlic bread arrived as a starter.

The food was very tasty – as it has always been every time I have visited. However, by now we were feeling a little uncomfortable around this member of staff.

We asked for the bill, which when it arrived had had an extra main course added to it. We all make mistakes, so it wasn’t a big problem. When I pointed it out to the waiter, he looked at the bill, took it away, came back and dropped the it back on the table. Didn’t say a word, not an apology, nothing.

He then walked off with the card terminal and struck up a long conversation with some other diners on another table.

We waited to pay, then waited and waited a little more. Eventually we asked another member of staff behind the counter – a very friendly and helpful gentleman, if we could pay. He then had to go looking for the terminal (which the waiter had) and bring it over so we could pay.

In the 50 minutes we were in the restaurant nobody ever did come in to fill the large selection of empty seats away from the door.

Either the guy took a big disliking to us, or he just shouldn’t be working in a job role dealing with the public.

Real shame as it’s been a favourite go to eatery over the years and really didn't want to write...