Nonno's Pizza (Chorleywood) — Restaurant in Three Rivers

Birthday celebration ruined! Extremely poor service! No, No, No Nonno!! We made the mistake of booking Nonno's for a birthday dinner. We made the booking in person a few days before on the condition that we could have a specific table by the window. They were very amenable to this request and emphasised over and over again that they would hold the table for us. Having travelled from Watford to Chorleywood on the day of the booking, we arrived to find a family already seated at the table we had requested who had barely started their main courses. We were greeted by the waiting staff and told that our table was no longer available and that we would have to wait at least 10 minutes to be seated at another table away from the window. This came as a huge, disappointing shock to my wife who couldn't believe the level of incompetence and poor customer service provided by what was thought to be a friendly, local family run business. Just goes to show that money comes before service no matter what the cost to their reputation! They should just stick to pizza delivery and stop pretending they are operating a restaurant! Not surprisingly we told the staff in no uncertain terms exactly what we thought of their behaviour and left the restaurant. You'd think that customer service would be extremely high up on a restaurant's list of priorities following the upset caused by the pandemic but it looks like profits will always be put first for some establishments. Unforgivable behaviour....

This place lacks attention to detail. The Pizza's are pretty average to be honest, on the sloppy side - too many ingredients. My partner had aTuna salad and the tuna was still in the shape of the tin on top of the leaves! I mean really? they could at least make an effort to present it differently so not to remind you that is costing £15 for a few leaves and a tin of Tuna. The house wine is not very good and horrendously overpriced - we had four glasses for £30 and no-one advised us to perhaps buy the bottle for £25. They have no Sorbet, all puddings are dairy based and as I cannot have milk what alternative is there? I have been in 3 times now and always feel that its all smoke and mirrors, but the I have lived in Italy and have had the real thing so I suppose its good enough for a provincial village near Watford so what can I say? They forgot our olives too. The waiter was chirpy but when you look past the smiles and jovial demeanour you can see they are charging a lot for a second rate experience. I don't usually write reviews but its come to a point with this place that I have to say something coz I imagine most people won't due to lack of experience with the real thing and being just too polite and English about it. I don't think Im gonna spend my money in Nonno's again. The Devil is in the the detail boys, the detail. limoncello should not be served in...

Now, not taking into account the completely lacklustre experience with the rude owner who refrained from typical pleasantries, the food was absolutely subpar. The wood-fired pizzas can only be described as revoltingly unexceptional, and is if they were actually topped correctly. The sauce used is an uncooked, acidic tomato paste instead of a more nuanced cooked sauce possessing enough basil and garlic to overcome the canned flavour of the tomatoes. If you want an actual wood-fired pizza, Bazil in Watford seems to have a better knowledge of what makes a pizza a pizza. The carbonara would have been edible if the smoked pancetta was adequately trimmed of the thick outside skin around the fat (which, as necessary as fat is WITH the meat, has no place in a dish if they only resort to using cubes of skin and fat instead of the meat in order to retain costs) and EVEN THEN, the pancetta was in short supply seemingly. The pasta itself was a dried pasta, which would have been fine if it was cooked al-dente as opposed to the pure mush that I received instead. Couple that with the ridiculously exuberant costs per dish, I really do not think this “restaurant” has any place anywhere. Do not bother wasting your time, money and effort.

Update: Now I have come to realise that I have food...