Lucca — Restaurant in Tendring

It has been hard to get a booking that suited, a sign of a good restaurant. This highly recommend place ticked away in Manningtree has been rated by many, on this occasion I visited I was sadly dissapointed. Greeted at the door and asked if we would like to sit outside, we took advantage as it was a warm evening, the table was sticky and the yard would have benefited from a clean and a sweat. The menus arrived slightly crumpled and mucky, my guest and I then sat for a while before being asked for drinks. We ordered all at once but our drinks arrived sometime after our delightful antipasta starter, (althought the slices of bread were very small for the generous portions of mozzeralla and curred meats. Our cocktail of the day was dissapointing both in taste and presentation but hey ho, the mains arrived the pizza was what was expected although very light of the cherry tomatoes (I counted 5 halves and 4 very small blobs of mozzeralla) however the spicy sausage was full flavoured. The veggi lasagna looked like it had been made by students in halls! The cast iron dish was chipped and just didn't look nice, the taste of it was equally as dissapointing the sauce was bitter (had not been cooked out properly, and had not been balanced with a gastric) it lack any finesse and would have not looked out of place in a wetherspoons. The ceaser salad was one of the worst I have had, no dressing deep fried croutons and just a very poor excuse for such a simple and delightful salad. The young lady who served us was friendly, but being out side I felt we were forgotten as food checks were when we had almost finished. The young lad who ran the food needs to have a lesson in smiling and friendly service as he looked so grumpy I felt we were putting him out. Overall a very dissapointing experience after all the rave reviews. The young lady server took the salad and lasagna off our bill which was very generous, may the kitchen was having a off day but would take a lot for me to return and...

Overall 4/5

My main course which was a seafood pasta came out barely luke warm and when I told the waitress, she apologised and took it back to the kitchen to have it reheated. I specifically said that I'm happy if the kitchen just put it in the microwave to heat it up (I'm not a fussy customer, but would like to have my food hot).

When the dish came back out the second time, there was genuinely no difference to the temperature. Being British I just ate the food as by this point my guests were already halfway through their main and I was only just starting!

After I've finished the meal, I went up to the same waitress and left her my feedback regarding the dish. She was very apologetic and asked if I wanted to speak to the manager. I didn't want to get anyone into trouble so I kindly declined the offer.

When it came to dessert time, I fancied having their special G&T whilst my guests had something sweet.

When the drink was delivered, the same waitress said to me that she's told her manager of my experience, she apologised again and said that the G&T was complimentary, as a way of saying sorry.

I was pleasantly surprised that they actually did something to rectify this.

I thanked her and the manager before I've left and felt a lot better, not because of the complimentary drink but because they acknowledged the issue and found a happy medium to move on from the situation.

Overall, it started weak and disappointing but the evening was saved by the floor staff taking their initiatives and tried their best to make things right.

Hopefully next time my pasta will be steaming hot, especially with the weather...

Poor experience. Huge wait to order, food and drink delayed, overly salty, and general poor service from the staff. The seasonal staff are not trained properly and didn’t have a clue how to do basic tasks or how to conduct themselves. We sat upstairs (next to a bin) which seemed to be more of a staff gathering area to talk about their nights out rather than an extension of the restaurant. Trying to get them to break away from one of their conversations was a challenge. We ordered a bottle of wine at the start which despite chasing numerous times came towards the end of our main course. The staff then couldn’t find a bottle opener and then had no idea how to use it and disappeared with it for another 10 minutes. Come on!! Basics!!

I could go on with the issues (delayed food, card machine issues etc)

I’ve been to Lucca before and it’s been great. Unless they improve and I start hearing better things from the locals, I won’t be spending my hard earned...