Davinci's Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in South Tyneside

When your first see Davinci's you know this is a classic italian setup with the Mini on the roof, music playing outside and a heavy use of wood paint.

Inside more wood paint, even on the radiators are coverd in wood paint but I like that its not just a massive white radiator so they have made a nice effort to hide them. I now realise that the whole point of Davinci's is to give you the best of italian moments and history. So you have the Mini on the roof, need I say more. There is a painting of the Roman colosseum in a curricular skylight. Jaz band painted on the walls. Old bottles hanging from roof, I'm sure there is more if you take a look around.

Upstiars are toilets and venue room with a mini bar. The toilets are clean but you can see it's needing a do over. There is a poster for cleaning record but it hasn't been updated for about 8 months I'm sure that's not the case but it would be nice to see it up to date. The venue room is about 8m x 6m with one large table in the middle, its a perfect place for little anniversary or big family meal with acess to your own bar for about 20 people to eat and 30+ for anything else. My facts are estimated and I'm sure if you call they will give more specific figures. They play italian radio in the background which is a lovely touch.

I liked the wine menu, even though I'm not a fan off wine I know a lot of people can appreciate a choice of wine, the bar is well stocked up so they were able to accommodate my odd concoctions of drinks at a verry good price.

The food was fantastic, for nearly every standard meal, there was a vegetarian option which is nice if you don't like feeling like the odd duckling.

We chose to have a sheared platter which was two bits of nice bread with chicken and liver patay, little bit of glazed onion and salad, which was amazing but when I order a platter I want some various cheeses, meat, buffalo mozzarella, cherry tomatoes, glazed onions and lightly toasted bread with a itlain sea salt butter, I hope they could accomidate this if I asked.

The main course was fantastic out very quick and wasn't cold, we could have been fancy and had something of the chef's special menue but I was feeling like a bit of pizza so i had a calzone which was deep pan and full of cheese. To go again I would have something off the board, they put them on there for a reason so always go of the special menue first.

£30 in total, including tip. For two people this is good value but this is about the the average you will spend on two people in South shields.

With a update to the bathroom, top up of paint on some places, hide the rubbish bin and hover from behind the upstairs mini bar and not to serve straws with a random knots in them to adults then this will earn...

I dined here with my daughter, son in law and my granddaughter two weeks ago. It was a lovely place and felt welcomed as soon as we walked in. We ordered our starters which arrived in good time. All were delicious until the last mouthful of my dish ( garlic mushrooms ) I thought I had a bit of dried mixed herbs in my mouth, however it was a piece of a metal scouring pad. I was obviously very disappointed with this and mentioned it to the waiter who asked the chef what this could be. He returned and said it was something off the pan that he cooked the dish in. I said that it looked like a piece of metal from a scouring pad and he said it wasn't. Fortunately this was my dish and not my granddaughter's who is only 17 month old. I let it go as I didn't want to spoil the rest of the dinner. I ordered a pizza which was lovely, my daughter and son in law ordered pasta with chicken, my daughter found a bit of gristle in her chicken and pushed it aside but then started to inspect the rest of her meal. She found another piece of meat that still had the tendon in. She was put off the meal and subsequently did not eat anymore, as my son in law had ordered the same he didn't finish his meal either. I complained again about it and he asked the chef again what it could be. He returned saying that it was the only chicken they had and no alternative. He said he would take that meal off the bill.

We went in for the specials which is around £12 each for a starter and main, we did order a child's meal which was a meal and ice cream, but we didn't even get the ice cream.

When I got the bill they had took the main meal off but still charged for the starter of garlic mushrooms. I paid the bill £47.63 and left obviously not a happy customer.

In hindsight I should've questioned the bill there and then but my granddaughter was getting grouchy by this time. My daughter had potato skins for her starter which I would imagine be one of the cheapest starters on the menu and I had the garlic mushrooms as mentioned with the piece of metal found in it. I shouldn't have had to pay for that at all. Also I should've taken a photo of the piece of metal and the meals but just didn't think about it at the time. I will have my wits about me if this happens again.

Overall, the waiter and waitress that served us were lovely and very apologetic, also rushed off their feet in the end when it started to get busy.

However, we will most definitely not be returning to this place anytime in the future and will be sure to tell friends and family of...

In terms of food, the worst restaurant food ive had in a very very long time, genuinely rank. The Bruschetta was barely toasted and instead of the usual finely diced tomato and onion olive oil dressing, it was just lazily sliced tomatoes with balsamic dressing and some very questionable and tasteless "parmesan". The pizza tasted like a supermarket pizza, all the ingredients cheap and nasty. Crappy doughy base, a dreadful cheap and sickly sweet pizza sauce, the kind of cheap stringy cheese you get at a bad takeaway and pepperonis that tasted of absolutely nothing, but yet somehow were the best part. Admittedly this place is cheap and it was the GNR, but wow, this was impressively bad food. In all fairness, the service was good without being great and the restaurant itself was clean and fairly cosy. Everybody in our group left food, and 2 of them had just ran 13 miles, I think that says it all. My food and pint came in at just over £20, but when the food isnt as half as good as what you can make at home, you still...