ASK Italian - Norwich — Restaurant in Norwich

When we arrived (family of four) no one greeted us for a while. Lots of servers moving around but avoiding eye contact with us. Eventually a smiling female server came over saying it would be a couple of minutes before they got to us. It's important to note this was on a Friday late lunch time 2-3pm and it was maybe 3rd full. At least two minutes more later a male server came over and told us it would be a couple of minutes and he would come over. At this point there were two more groups behind us who had just arrived at which point the male server came over and showed us to a table. We waited a good 5-10 mins for someone to take our order. The two tables who came in after us were seen to first. Both of them.

When we were finally served the male staff member was rude when we asked if we could order food at the same time as the drinks. Dramatic sigh and seemed ticked off we even asked, followed by a snarky reply they had to do the drinks first to which we clarified politely of course, just afterwards we would like to order food as well. It was my husbands birthday, he has barely said a word and has been entertaining our son drawing (we take our children out frequently to eat in public and they know how to behave at a table which is why we brought books and colouring ourselves and hand on heart they were good as gold. No raised voices or chaos, just happy scribbling or reading).

We ordered our food, specifying if the children's starter could be brought out when it was ready, but that everything else could come out at the same time.

This was ignored, again I'm trying to keep my pissed off husband happy on his birthday and just smile and ignore this even though from the shit service so far he has already muttered we aren't tipping today. Something we always do, but yeah not rewarding this.

The food was absolutely fantastic, not one complaint, we had goujons, pizza, chips, garlic bread, garlic prawns and every single component tasted fantastic.

It saved the experience a bit, but this was my husbands birthday and every interaction we had with the male waiter staff was stand offish. We have never had this before, I'm not sure if he hated children or families no idea but he put a dampner on my husbands birthday and my day off.

One of our favourite places to go up the city, we won't be coming back for a repeat of...

Went here on a Friday evening, booked ahead for me and my partner and got their about five minutes early, we stood in the entrance where it told us to wait and about 5 minutes later got noticed and taken to our table a few minutes later by a lovely gentleman. Sat down and had a look around and the restaurant looks lovely it is kitchen very clean and very nice looking and smells great, I did notice however a lot of tables that were unclean and they took a while to clean table and clear them. We tried to order our food and for about 10 minutes it didn't accept our table as existing so we waited for a staff member to order in person and a member of staff came over and said they couldn't take our order as they were busy and we had to order through the site (code scan) and she had just allowed our table to order I guess they have to set tables to be order first? Which I feel like 10 minutes was a little long to be waiting and to not have the option to order to a person and not online was a little annoying. My partners drink arrived and mine did not so after about five minutes i had to ask and they brought me one over but i believe they had forgotten about mine. We ordered a cheese fondue starter which was lovely and could not be faulted.The mains were lovely me and my partner both had pasta dishes which were delicious and worked very well, I ordered a manzo piccante which was very tasty and full of flavour and looked lovely although I was a little disappointed with how little meatballs or chicken (I added chicken) they had put in, my partner had spaghetti Al pomodoro which she said was absolutely lovely and had no complaints. For desert we had brownie Al forne which was in my opinion perfect with cherry gelato as well it was absolutely gorgeous in flavour and look, overall I reccomend it but i think it would be on a weekday as all of the staff seemed a little busy...

May half-term week in Norfolk. Always find time for a trip to Norwich - great shops! Anyway, lunchtime presented its usual challenge to find somewhere not too busy and not junk-food. I’m usually not a pizza-for-lunch type, but my OH could eat pizza morning, noon and night and still find space for more pizza. So we chose Ask as it wasn’t rammed and has quite an extensive range of “not-pizza” dishes. Loads to choose from - but for some unfathomable reason I was quite taken by the description of the first pizza on the menu so Spicy Calabrian with nduja and goats cheese - and decided to step out of my comfort-zone. It was really good - tasty, lovely thin base that still had flavour and chew - and stayed hot on its marble board. I started eating it before I took the pic - apologies!! My only criticism for both mine and my partners would be there wasn’t a lot of cheese - just a little more would’ve made it five stars! Anyway, the restaurant was bright and fresh and felt clean and airy. The staff were great - attentive, happy to help, friendly, drinks arrived super quickly - and the beer was perfectly chilled - food was quick too and looked and tasted fresh from the oven (not having hung around under heat lamps). Would definitely visit again - I’ve been to different Ask restaurants and this one definitely stood out...