Marco's — Restaurant in Sheffield

I'd read a few reviews (not Tripadvisor) and saw that they seem to have a lot of repeat business and we saw some of these in there. However, I should have taken more notice of the bad one. Walking in, it reminded me of a cross between a 70s restaurant and a nursing home/funeral parlour. Now I'm not usually put off by things like this as some of the best Italian restaurants I've been to are the old, family run, been around forever type. But, it was filthy, the chairs were heavily stained, the picture/prints had faded to the point they were barely recognisable and it seemed as though it hadn't had a proper clean for years (think Gordon Ramsay Kitchen Nightmares).

Anyway, to the food. There was a big menu from which my daughter picked the smoked salmon and prawn in marie rose sauce and my husband and I picked the crispy mixed seafood from the 'specials' board. Unfortunately it was far from special. It was a mix of fish, the 'seafood' must mean the one prawn in the mix that we had, and had a scampi, slightly burnt look. It tasted like it could have come from a very down market Iceland. I was already regretting my choice restaurant and the fact that we could hear chef mike (the microwave) pinging away did nothing to increase my hopes for the main course.

So mains. My daughter ordered the Hawaiian pizza and it came out uncut. Now I've been to a few restaurants in my time but I've never seen what seemed to be grated ham. It was however edible, just. I opted for chicken tagliattele. For the positive it was a large portion. It was pretty tasteless but did give us some entertainment in playing 'spot the chicken'. When the pieces were found they tasted like the pre-cut chicken pieces that had come from a very down market supermarket chain. My husband got the worst deal. He had gone for the seafood calzone. It came out piping hot however the bottom was soggy and there was a watery element seeping into the sauce. Again I'm guessing it was down to a combination of some of it being frozen and heated by the microwave.

It cost £54 which I thought was quite expensive given the quality. That was with a corkage charge (fair enough), a large coke and a Peroni beer.

I was really looking forward to some old fashioned, authentic Italian food and all we got was poor quality, probably frozen food that had been heated up. It was disappointing in that I could have cooked it better at home with better...

I haven't been to Marcos for many years, and I'm pleased to say that the quality hasn't declined in that time.

The food is really good, decent portions (seriously, I had to pop my top button) and very reasonably priced.

The only thing I felt mildly deflated by was the lack of vegetarian options (I was a meat eater when I last ate there). That being said, the food I had was delicious and the rest of my party were equally thrilled with their food.

I will certainly come back and eat here again, and maybe I'll wear some elasticated...

Very nice little Italian restaurant situated on chesterfield road Sheffield. It's small but very cosy. The food is great cooked fresh and tasty. Try the crespello pancakes, we both enjoyed a lot! Restaurant has been around for a while and you can see why because of the good food and friendly nice staff. Quite warm though :-) Food did take a while to arrive, but would rather have it cooked fresh then anything else, plus it's not a fast food...