ASK Italian - Oxford — Restaurant in Oxford

Very disappointed with our visit here this evening, we have been here many times before and always had a good time. This time it felt as though the waiter did not want to be there.

The service was really poor, firstly when we were shown to the table he blocked the way to pour the lemonade they give and then we had to give way to him before we could even sit, it meant we were awkwardly standing in the aisle between tables waiting to be able to be seated, he then said that’s the lemonade as he walked off. He then made a mistake with the starter and when we asked he came across as annoyed even when it was his fault, didn’t apologise just seemed angry we had asked for it to be changed to what we actually ordered- he was very unattentive and if he was listening he wouldn’t of made mistake. We were only two people so it wasn’t as though it was a large and complex order.

When mains arrived he left without asking if we wanted anything else such as pepper, cheese etc which is a staple at Italian restaurants. We had to wait to try to get his attention for this. The wrong order which was changed was still on our bill making it more expensive and luckily we noticed, he didn’t apologise just went away- we assumed to rectify but took over 10 minutes to even come back to us with the new receipt. When we asked to pay by card he then abruptly and rudely asked are you going to add a tip and usually we always tip wait staff but on this occasion we definitely did not. It was so rude to ask let alone after the poor service. A shame as our food was delicious but put a dampener on the whole evening. At the prices you would expect a good service alongside it.

The restaurant was not busy at all for this to be down to under staffed etc but regardless this shouldn’t reflect service. Not customer...

So booked a table got seated straight away and was given a complimentary shot of pink Lemonade which was very nice. Didn't wait too long before our oder was was taken, and within no time our starter of garlic bead with cheese arrived which was lovely and piping hot. So for our mains we ordered carbonara and margherita pizza with a side of sweet potato fries. Our mains arrived and look good apart from we had a side of chips not fries so asked for them to be swaped for what we asked for. The pizza it's self was nice it had a strong flavour of tomato could of done with a bit more cheese. The carbonara only had a hint of flavour to it no sauce whatsoever and a very small amount of bacon lardons. For dessert decided to go for the cookie dough but swapped the salted caramel ice cream for vanilla and the Nutella gnocchi. The cookie dough arrived with the caramel ice cream on it so we asked for it to be exchanged for vanilla ice cream, the waiter asked if he could just remove the ice cream and replace with vanilla with out cooking a new one as this would take time so we agreed. Two minutes later the waiter returned with the cookie but had only replaced one of the scoops of caramel ice cream with vanilla so we had one of each, by this time we were still waiting for our gnocchi to arrives. Sent the cookie dough back again and asked for a fresh one with the vanilla ice cream. 5 minutes later the gnocchi arrived which was very tasty could of done with a dollop of ice cream on the side but still very tasty, finish this before the cookie dough got back to us, the cookie dough was OK could of done with being cooked a little longer as was very very gooey in the middle. Overall an...

Excellent head waiter / manager, but disappointing serving staff and evening!

My partner and I went for dinner and started off by ordering drinks, the waiter taking our order wasn't terribly helpful when I asked for more information on one of their beers, but fair enough, I ordered it anyway. It stated 500ml on the menu (with no option for any other size!), and arrived in a 300ml bottle. I asked the head waiter / manager about this and he stated they had run out of the 500ml and I would only be charged for the 300ml. I asked to change beer as that wasn't explained to me and the value of the 300ml wasn't good enough. He was very obliging and sorted it out straight away with no fuss. I also overheard him explaining to my initial waiter that he should have explained the situation before allowing me to order it.

We then had a very nice starter and dinner, then moved on to desserts.. and again, the order went wrong! The menu stated it would be served with white chocolate curves, but came with coconut... quite the surprise. Again though, this was sorted by the boss man with no fuss, and profuse apologising.

Very impressed with the ability to fix these issues in a polite, friendly, and professional manner, but when dining out, you don't expect to run into such problems.

The food that came correctly was fairly tasty and what I'd expect from an...