Spaghetti Tree — Restaurant in Reigate and Banstead

An Italian restaurant that that genuinely cannot cook carbonara… yet they expect people to £14.50 for it!

I’d honestly rate this place below Zizzi, Pizza Express and every other awful Italian chain restaurant going. We waited for over 2 hours for substandard food, no apology or acknowledgement from staff that simply just stood and watched this circus of restaurant unfold.

Made the mistake of celebrating a birthday meal at this restaurant based on reputation and quite honestly whoever has thought it’s a good restaurant on their “lively” Saturday nights has no concept of what the very basic and fundamental requirements of operating a restaurant, let alone operating a venue that offers, food, drink and entertainment.

We waited 2 hours for our meals… our table was booked for 7:45 and nobody took our order order for over an hour… we arrived at 7:30 but didn’t receive our meals until 10pm.

When it arrived… the calves liver could’ve been microwaved better and the bacon served with it was cheap back bacon that looked like it was cooked on a radiator.

Lobster linguine could have been made better with canned/tinned crab meat, the putrid fishy taste of the seafood spoke volumes if their premium ingredients were that poor.

But most embarrassingly the carbonara was genuinely inedible. A classic staple of Italian food made of 4 ingredients, it should be impossible to ruin that but it was truly woeful. It was a disgusting salty, sticky mess and even Stevie Wonder could see it was not made with guanciale…

Dreadful food aside…

The seating arrangement was horrific, the entire place was packed to the point that even the waiting staff physically couldn’t get past tables that were laid virtually back to back.

It was literally impossible for anybody on one half of our table to get out of their seat without literally pushing each individual table out to allow those on the bench seat to get out... No assistance from staff, no apology, it was pathetic and despite clearly watching us struggling the issue was deliberately ignored.

As a member of a birthday party you try to avoid ruining the day… however, in all honesty, it was uncomfortable, cramped and unpleasant for every single moment we were there and we were just relieved that the sorry excuse for food was done with so we no longer had to sit down.

Not one single waiting staff bothered to take a drinks order throughout the entire evening we were seated - so we were pitted against every other unsatisfied, frustrated patron to queue at the bar in a table-served restaurant to get an overpriced, tasteless and weak drink.

The entertainment was not what was advertised and whilst the DJ/club singer tried his best, there was no room to even move past tables - let alone actually enjoy the Magic Radio most overplayed hits ensemble he put on.

If somebody refunded me the entire meal and offered me the same meals for free I’d still turn them down. On a table of 11 people, not one single person had one positive thing to say.

What an overrated, over capacity dump this place is… both the men’s and women’s toilets stank, with urine all over the floor, no toilet paper and a stench that proliferated the whole toilet area so much it made me miss the portaloos from building sites and we laughed that it was like being in a cheap foreign nightclub, without the toilet attendees to actually keep things in order.

The fact that this establishment would be nominated for an award in the minuscule pocket of Surrey it resides is laughable… To see there was a national award to Italian cuisine in 2017 on display by our table is an insult to the entire Roman Empire…

I’d have been dissatisfied if the evening was free. But unfortunately even the overzealously priced drinks were not strong enough to drown my sorrows.

What a waste of time, money and opportunity. An embarrassment to...

Booked online for a few weeks ahead to celebrate 2 family birthdays on 12.02.22. Waited nearly 30mins for our order to be taken at which point we were informed that the only choices were from a somewhat unappetizing set valentines menu at £60 per head. On querying this, as this hadn't been made clear on booking, one of the staff (who we later found out was a co--owner) came over, she told us it was shown on the website if we scrolled to the bottom but my daughter who booked said she hadn't seen anything and checked her confirmation email but there was nothing mentioned there either! We asked to pay for the drinks and leave but were then told reasonably bluntly that we would still be charged the £60 per head regardless and said she'd leave us for a while to think about it. A further 20 minutes later and still consoling my daughter, who had been reduced to tears thinking she had ruined the evening, we managed to attract the attention of a member of staff and placed our order. I ordered fillet steak medium rare, it came out well done so it got sent back, it then came out again and it was blue, when it arrived for the 3rd time it was rare but mostly edible and as everyone else had finished eating I decided to accept it. The owner ignored us for the rest of the evening although the manager did try his best to improve things and provide good service even asking the singer to make a birthday mention for my husband and daughters partner which was nice and at least made us laugh when Michael was sung happy birthday to as Michelle!! When the bill arrived we said we were not prepared to pay the service charge based on initial poor service and subsequent very obvious deliberate avoidance as well as the steak having to be returned twice. Talking to the manager during various conversations about why we wouldn't pay the service charge it turned out that the co-owner was well aware my daughter had been reduced to tears so said she wanted to give us space ??? I was in the hospitality industry myself and if you have an unhappy table then its very poor hosting skills to decide to ignore them all evening the least that should have happened is for her to come back over, apologise for the misunderstanding "however it happened" and check if everything was now in order. On talking to another customer whilst having a cigarette outside they had found themselves in the same situation, couldn't eat the starter, chicken main was dry and they actually decided to leave before their dessert. Won't be...

I must start my review by stating how lovely the service was. The staff were lovely and attentive, except for the long wait for drinks. But all the staff had smiles on their faces and were very friendly.

However, my partner and I were not too pleased with the food itself. On a good note, the traditional spaghetti carbonara was fantastic. It was seriously the best carbonara I've ever had. So yummy! However, my main - the spagetti bolognese - was not as good. To begin, it was very bland. It needed more salt, but it also lacked depth of flavour. The meat was so dry, and it had seemingly clumped together to form the dryest chunks of beef. It really was unpleasant. I also didn't love the salad garnish on top of a bolognese. It didn't go with the dish.

Our starters weren't that great either. I had the mushroom arancini, which were not only bitesized in arancini but also bland. The garlic aioli that came with it did not work very well with the arancini. I found it quite uninspired. The 'spaghetti tree' ribs came in a gorgeous sweet and salty bourbon sauce, but unfortunately, the meat was bone dry. At one point, I tried a piece of the rib, and it flaked apart in my mouth like sawdust. It was just overcooked and unpleasant. This was surprising as it was on the more expensive side of the starters. Finally, we also had the cheesy garlic bread to share, which was fine. But the balsamic glaze was weirdly bitter.

These factors, including the prices of the food, and the fact that a bottle of water cost £5.50!!!, and a pint of coke costs £5.00! does not make me want to return to the spaghetti tree. My partner asked for a double rum and coke, just the rum on its own was £9.00, with an extra £1.50 for the coke - it just felt like overkill, especially when we weren't told that the price on the menu didn't include a mixer.

Although the service was lovely, the prices and the fact a bill came to over £80 for a two course meal,...