Roberto's Pizza House — Restaurant in Stoke-on-Trent

The restaurant has a nice 'local Italian' atmosphere about it - the tables are a little closer together than some places and the high ceilings raise the volume of the general murmur of conversation around you, but this is more part of its charm than a problem. The only point I would make about the atmosphere, however, is that the door into the downstairs dining room slams horribly and is very busy, which really did detract from the overall experience.

The menu is surprisingly large, which often rings alarm bells for me as it's very difficult to keep such a wide variety of things freshly on hand in the kitchen, but given how busy they were, this place if any would be able to pull it off. We both settled for pizzas in the end, and whilst the bases were near-perfect with that just right sound when you tap it from below, there was rather a lot of cheese on top, and combined with the concave plate this meant a fair bit of oil pooled in the middle which rendered it soggy - a shame, as it was otherwise an excellent pizza and slightly less cheese and a flat plate could have prevented it. In mitigation, the tiramisu was near perfect, with all the right flavours individually distinguishable and none of the wrong ones.

The service was very good throughout, except for at the very end. For some reason, once we'd finished and we were ready to pay, we just couldn't get anyone to clear the table and offer the bill, and we also noticed another table in the room having to call for help as staff passed by. In the end, I went up to the counter to pay the bill as my partner putting on her scarf, jumper, and coat in stages didn't signal anyone. Again, unfortunate, as it was a poor ending to an otherwise brilliant evening.

All that said, we'd still visit again if in the area as it was an overall positive experience and everyone can...

We had this place on the list for some time and we gave it a go tonight. The place is loud and extremely warm, but overall affordable. Food on the other side, unfortunately didn’t excite us as much as we expected. The pasta were certainly all in the same kind of sauces and the white sauce just pure double cream with no trace of actual cooking sauce of frying some onion with garlic and the mushroom etc and make it a sauce out of it for the spaghetti funghi. It tasted like they boil the pasta and just threw the double cream on with some mushrooms and that was that. Same with the bolognese sauce, just canned tomatoes, and the lasagna sheets and cannelloni were overcooked and mushy. This is not real italian food, they don’t even have a proper wood fire for pizzas either. The service, terrible from start to end, with a team of 10 people not facing the small establishment service, just one single waitress that actually knew what to do, and the rest were just walking around. Plus, the drinks didn’t come on a tray, and the server had her fingers all over the rim of the glasses instead of holding the glasses from the middle. They didn’t have a clue about dishes, drinks, just walking around, waited ages for the bill, it took 5 people to ask for it, not stopping when you say stop at pepper nor parmezan just to finish off the spoons, certainly not professional and not the friendly service that you get in Italy and hospitality that Italians are known for. The only good thing out of the whole experience were the desserts, and the cheesecakes were delicious. Shame as it looked like it had a lot...

I booked a table here on the recommendation from a friend who'd had a take away from here. On arrival the staff were so friendly and attentive and couldn't do enough for us. The waiter didn't hover over us or make us feel rushed, he even came back with a straw for my drink so I didn't ruin my lipstick... Iconic! We ordered 3 starters, one to share between us, the waiter gave us extra plates so we could share them all, (the little touches really do make a HUGE difference) For the main I ordered one of the more expensive items on the menu, again recommended by my friend. It was a king prawn risotto which I chose to have cooked in garlic rather than chargrilled. Oh my god! Blown away, hands down the nicest dish I've EVER had at an Italian restaurant, definitely worth the money. When we were finished we were shocked at the price, it was so reasonable for what we'd had (3 starters, 2 mains, 2 drinks each and chips) all for under £63! We spoke with a guy (I'm assuming was the owner, but I may be wrong) who took our payment and was shocked to learn we'd never even heard of the place before my friend had told us about it. It really is a hidden gem and we'll definitely be back! I've been raving about it to everyone who will listen for the past...