Carluccio's — Restaurant in Southampton

Extremely disappointing lunch on Friday 13th October - was obviously a bad luck day for us!! My Mum and I wanted to enjoy a glass of wine with a spoiling lunch whilst having a catch up and shopping day so opted for Carluccio's - oh boy we should have gone to Pizza Express or even Pizza Hut!!... Couldn't fault the staff seating us, taking our order and the wine was lovely however the food was terrible. Luke warm, tasteless and served on cold plates. My lasagne was tiny for £14.95 and mine at home is so much better, I was expecting more from an Italian restaurant version. My Mum chose Chicken Milanese which was again luke warm and looked appalling on the plate. When our waitress asked how our lunch was I did say it was cold and that we were both disappointed with our meals, but by then we'd almost finished (well 3 fork falls and mine was gone!) so didn't want what was left reheated in the kitchen microwave. We declined dessert and coffees as we just wanted to leave to find an alternative destination to finish our lunch. When given the bill we had 20% taken off and I have since kicked myself for not making more fuss as both our meals were awful. Whilst sat in the restaurant we completed the online review from the QR code on the receipt - we have heard nothing back. I would not recommend this chain restaurant and will never visit a...

We were shown to a table and basically forgotten about. It wasn't just us but a table behind us and 2 other tables next to us were also seated and ignored After 20 mins of nothing I stopped a waitress and asked if indeed I could place an order. She muttered something about not knowing where the waitress was, although I did inform her that a guy had sat us. So eventually ordered food and drink. It came fairly quickly and was nice enough, still at this point the 3 other tables previously mentioned had STILL yet to be attended to!!! After our plates were collected *been there for an hour at this point) the other tables still waiting, I asked for our bill as didn't fancy waiting any longer. I paid the bill and informed the waitress that the service was shocking, she tried to say they were busy but I told her that NONE of the tables in our section had received any service at all, to which she replied 'its like that sometimes!'. I've been there a few times and the service has always been dreadful, which is a shame as the food is OK. There were plenty of staff, and as a manager for a very large chain of pubs I'm fully aware of what happens in the hospitality industry. The waiting staff are useless and there is absolutely no management at all over seeing a smooth service

VERY VERY POOR , ONLY VISIT IF YOU HAVE SEVERAL HOURS SPARE AND LIKE...

I used to love this chain. How the mighty have fallen. Antonio must be turning in his gold and ermine lined grave. His concept of an Italian restaurant with a deli attached is so now so far from the original idea. Nowadays its just a very average conveyer belt chain restaurant with a cheap shop on the side. Dry almost stale Foccacia (If you want good chain foccacia go to Côte) Tasteless Burrata (Franco Manca is so much better). Add to the almost absent ( took 10 mins to be acknowledged in an empty restaurant at 2pm) humourless service that has no idea between a dry and fruity wine from their own wine list. If you ask for tap water you get a small glass end. The menu has now been pared down to the absolute basics obviously in a cost drive offering no originality Lovely sirloin steak cooked perfectly but with zero offers of accompaniments served with the minimum lettuce they could get away with. Who the hell serves lemon with a steak. Oh I see it's meant to go with the undressed rocket leaves. Dreadful. This used to be a go to chain. It's just on the down post Covid cutting costs to survive. Only reason it makes money is location There are so many better places on the High Street that don't rip you off as much. Teach me to be hungry next time! Investors beware this is not going to be...