La Vita Spuntini City Centre — Restaurant in Scotland

Found plastic in the food and was forced to pay for it!

My partner found plastic in her food and in the end was told she had to pay for it as she’d eaten most of it. If you’ve ever been here you’d know the portion sizes are tiny and the pizza is cut into 2 slices. She left over half of her slice after finding the plastic- so she had only eat half of her portion. I had eaten the other half of the pizza- before knowing that the crust had plastic in it.

We ended up spending over 1.5 hours chatting to numerous staff and managers to ask why we have to pay for the pizza and the only response was “you eat most of it so you have to pay”. They did offer “complimentary” coffee which seemed like a nice gesture but were then told the coffee is close to equivalent price of the pizza so we were offered that to offset the plastic issue! Ironically I don’t drink coffee so I had asked for hot chocolate instead, which of course I didn’t drink at all after finding out it wasn’t really complimentary at all. The customer service was atrocious and the female manager was very rude, actually haven’t dealt with anyone ruder in all my time In Glasgow.

I have been a regular customer here over the years but will never be back again. If you do go here make sure to fully check every bit of your food before you eat as if you have eat over 50% of the food you’ll be paying for it even if you choke on plastic! —- Edit after owner review:

can’t believe the lies on the reply from the owner with 0 accountability- unsurprising though considering the owner wasn’t on the premises and is just trying to cover the story in a better reflection. I have decided I will report the incident to food standards agency and I hope they can go through the cctv and check the events or at least be in touch. I’ll not reply to every point but a few points: pizza wasn’t finished, 1.5 slices (out of 4) went back to the waiter. Not that this should matter since the issue is plastic in the food, not how much was eaten. The plastic had basil on it and again I would love for you to go through cctv and verify this- without just saying slander with 0 checking. If you decide to watch it back you will see my partner cutting the dough and pulling out plastic and putting it on the plate. Lying about previous bookings again is strange, not that I need to prove anything but I can give you multiple previous bookings with a few different names on them which I of course won’t do on a public forum. Mainly as I have been to the one in bishopbriggs a good few times with my family. Again not that it matters. There was no verbal abuse and I didn’t mention putting in a bad review (I’ve actually never put in a Google review before but felt obligated to yesterday), this is just a straight up lie and not sure where this has came from? If this has come from the female manager then please ask the other waiters/ servers to verify this as it is not a good look for the manager to straight up lie about the encounter. I was chatting to the waiter right before we left and said to him that there’s no issues with him- as he was extremely nice to us during the whole situation. In fact my partner had to stop the female manager blaming the other manager for being ‘misleading’- and we said that is not the case and the first manager we dealt with was very nice to us and no fault was with him. The only issues I had was with the female manager and of course the owners who were making decisions over a phone call without being there.

Never dealt with food standards agency so not sure the process, but maybe will be...

OK - so came here in 2021 whilst spending a couple of months in Glasgow with work - visited about 5 times and the experience was very good/excellent.

Visited this evening - I won’t be in a hurry to come back.

Here is my experience for the benefit of other diners on the medium-high pricing range - £130 for three starters, two mains, two glasses of wine each, one cocktail. Table of 2.

First drink - Margarita cocktail (£11) was very poor in comparison to previous visits - arrived on a silver tray where the drink had clearly been spilled, salt was down the side of the glass rather than on the rim. Clearly made by somebody with no experience in cocktail prep as quantities of ingredients/method all wrong - to the point it was difficult to drink.

The arancini served as one of three starters was poor - temperature issues and generally bland in comparison to previous visits (was a favourite). The tomato based sauce (the same one that accompanied all three starters) had little flavour and lukewarm. The other two starters were nice and I would have again (stuffed focaccia and bread crumb mozzarella).

Ordered the Steak and Lobster/Surf & Turf for main (I’d had this on every previous visit), ordered medium-rare and it arrived well done. Served on a cold plate which meant the mussels and lobster were cold after a minute or so. No shell dish or finger bowl provided - had to ask for a bowl for mussel shells. Think the balsamic over powered the mussels and lobster too - all to make it look fancy rather than a consideration to taste.

The other main course - half chicken (small serving) was again lukewarm - came with a very generic gravy that was again… lukewarm. Polenta chips were not crispy and fell apart at the fork.

The wine was nice (Primitivo and Sauv Blanc) - would be good to put their origin on the menu (Italy/New Zealand etc).

The young tall male waiter was very pleasant and attentive (description so compliments can be passed) - knowledgeable about the menu and wine, and followed up when drinks took a long time to come. He’s the reason the overall rating is 2/5 and not 1/5.

Don’t agree with the disruption to the whole of the mezzanine because one person on a big table has a birthday. I get the whole one table singing happy birthday to their friend, but the “everyone pay attention, it’s someone’s birthday etc etc” is just not appropriate when other diners are out to have a relaxing meal, in an already loud restaurant. If other diners want to join in then that’s fine, but purposefully calling out to other tables and disrupting for 2-3 minutes is not OK and outdated.

Overall, was disappointed and I hope that someone in management takes note of this review - you had it so right every time when I previously visited. Please refocus on doing great food, great drinks and excellent service. You will have a great product.

I’m not one to make a fuss over poor standards when you’re entertaining company, it ruins the vibe and is considered rude. Nobody asked how my experience was when I was paying - not even the manager who brought our bill - otherwise I would have been open to giving some constructive feedback at the time.

Maybe I’ll revisit in another three years and update this review, but for now, it won’t be...

👎👎👎 Not a good experience about the order.

We came for the first time to order two pastas with small sizes. One girl is so nice to describe the size of the bowl. Because it was lunch time and it's not so good for having a full lunch for exploring the city, we confirmed that we need both small sizes.

When the food came, I didn't truly realise the bowl had different sizes and I have no hesitation to taste the food. That's the next story and I will tell you what happened next.

🍽️ Now we talk about the food first - too much olive oil is used, it's too greasy, and the seasoning steals the style of the food. The seafood pasta has lost the freshness of the mussels. Risotto cooked to the point of sticking to the teeth, hard to swallow but losing flavor. Sangria, probably due to the base wine, tasted very bitter and I don't think it was my favorite flavor.

I tried to swallow the so-called risotto but my stomach seems to be filled fully. I finally realised that it may have the wrong size of my food. The bill also confirmed my suspicions. 🥲

I didn't express any intention of arguing about the bill, but I just wanted to express some of my complaints about placing the wrong order, so I expressed this to the waiter, who put me on hold and got their manager, a middle-aged woman. This was the most unpleasant part of my entire dining experience and the reason why I rated their service 0 out of 10! 💢

The manager came over and after listening to my complaint, she arrogantly said "You should notice the size of the bowl. Once you find the mistake you should tell me." trying to blame me for their waiter's mistake. 😅 (What?)

After I heard those words I was so angry that I fainted. I said, "It's my first time in your restaurant, how am I supposed to know the size of your bowl? I will pay the bill, but your attitude of blaming me made me very unhappy." The lady pissed me off and ruined my whole Glasgow trip today!💢

Thinking back to when we first walked in the door and waited to be greeted by a waiter at the entrance of the restaurant, this manager was the first to see us, we asked her for a seat for two. What this manager did was she picked up two menus that were at the reception and spoke in a commanding tone to one of her staff for about 30 seconds and told him to lead us to an empty seat. She didn't have a single conversation with us, and all of it showed that she doesn't have the concept of equality, doesn't love her job and doesn't know how to communicate with customers.

I don't have a particular feeling about the other waiters 👍, they were nice to me as well as respectful when I asked some questions and gave my opinion, instead the experience reminded me of these bad bosses in the workplace who are in positions of power and maliciously bully others.

I would not recommend a restaurant...