Gusto Trattoria — Restaurant in Sefton

Updated Review

So we finally went back to Gusto after hearing they had new owners.

I'd been craving a good seafood pizza for a while, and Mrs FtB wanted a good antipasti platter, so we decided to pop down to Gusto again as the food previously was fantastic, they lost points on service, but that was the inept former manager... Who preferred to watch his waiting staff struggle with a busy restaurant as opposed to helping them.

Anyway, I digress, we walked in without a booking around 8pm, there were a few people in which created a nice, lively atmosphere. We were shown to a table for 2 initially but I like a bigger table as we tend to order a decent amount so the waitress suggested. Table for 4 Infront of the kitchen... Yes please! Give me a show!

Our drinks arrived quickly, opting for a bottle of red (can't recall which) and some water. We opted for some garlic bread, the antipasti platter and the seafood pizza with pancetta added.

The food didn't take too long to arrive, and when it did I remembered why I'd been craving a return.

The antipasti was loaded with meats, seafood, various veggies and cheese and could easily be a main course, the garlic bread was perfectly cooked, nice and crispy and very garlicky but the star of the show was the seafood pizza.

Heaps of garlic prawns, mussels and calamari ensuring every slice had a bit of everything, perfect base, perfect crust, just faultless.

I can't recall what we had for desert, but know it was bloody good as Mrs FtB had to almost roll me out of the restaurant.

Overall zero issues, great food, lovely restaurant, fantastic...

Great food but service and decor let it down.

We had the Antipasto platter which for £16 had a great selection of meats, cheeses and veggies, they even included Mortadella as my partner loves it. The portion was huge and this could quite easily be shared by 3-4 people if you weren't big eaters.

For mains I chose the pizza di mare and the Mrs had spaghetti di mare (we love seafood).

Again both were very good, the only negative about the pizza is I felt they could've put more seafood on it. It's a shame as it was almost in my top 5 seafood pizzas list.

The pasta was a generous portion which defeated Mrs FTB which meant I got to finish it off. Very tasty, perfectly cooked pasta and a great mix of seafood.

The only thing that let this place down was the service, our waitress was attentive but was also the only one doing any work, we asked for the bill and had to wait several minutes whilst she was bringing out food to other tables, as the manager/owner stood there doing nothing.

Surely he could've brought over the bill, asked how everything was... And taken a bit of pressure off his staff.

Positives - Great food, good location, and good service from the waitress

Negatives - Inattentive manager/owner, Decor could do with updating and the dreadful art on the walls disappearing, whilst we didn't experience it ourselves the table next to us were sitting next to a glass bricked wall and spent their meal shielding their eyes from the...

Lovely food as all other reviews state. I had a pizza with artichoke and olives with rocket. I was stuffed for hours. Should have just been a reasonable person and taken a doggy bag away with me. Went with a friend who is gluten free who was impressed there was an alright amount of choices and she enjoyed the chocolate almond cake. I think she said it wasn't very almond-y if that helps anyone. Another had the apple pie and it was amazing looking and lovely cinnamon throughout the slice. The pasta meals were probably the perfect portion but it was mentioned that one would have liked it a bit larger. Everything tasted amazing. I had a scoop of chocolate ice cream which was very rich; I could have easily eaten 5 scoops. Lovely position to watch over weatherspoons across the road if you leave a bunch of males on their own with a baby while you go for a meal in peace. We watched the parking attendant hand out tickets which was entertaining. Good position if you're a people watcher. There were complaints about the waitress being on her own, again, it was the same and service in my opinion was absolutely fine even if it was a bit slower but we weren't in any rush to get back to...