Bertorelli (Charlotte St)

This "restaurant" is an overpriced joke!

I was there on a Sunday for lunch. I ordered the "special" starter which was a baby lobster and fresh tomato tagliolini. This consisted of some sort of thin Chinese noodles swimming in tasteless tepid water. The baby lobster was chopped in the mixture and some pieces of shells had been left in there too. The only flavour was the overpowering chilli which took over the whole dish.

My main was Garganelli with Italian sausages. Once again no flavour and there was no way that sausage had been anywhere near Italy! I ended up leaving a quarter of that in the plate and I NEVER leave anything usually.

My lunch companion also had the bad idea of ordering a Tuscany Sausage main and once again was served some grey looking Tesco sausages! We regularly shop for Italian sausages in local delis so we know what they should be like and that definitely wasn't it! Why lie?

Stay away from this place!!!
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Marco
1 Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 5 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 0
Monday, January 17, 2011

What an awful experience in September 2010: bad food & undrinkable house "wine". On top of that the restaurant put us to pay for the olives we didn't order. Uuhhh!
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1 Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 2 | Value for money 0
Monday, October 04, 2010

With a party of eight we visited this restaurant at 10pm on tuesday evening, at which time the restaurant was virtually empty. Despite this fact it took some time to get a drink and even longer for our main courses to arrive. The chicken escalope that several party members had ordered with specifically requested saute potatoes arrived with boiled new potatoes, and we were then informed that "this was all the kitchen had"!

The rather surly waitress, whose command of the english language was more than lacking, clearly demonstrated by her demeanour and body language that she would have rather been somewhere else!

As we regularly dine in the West End, we considered that being charged £14-95 for a poorly presented chicken escalope with four small boiled new potatoes and some very odd lettuce leaves was quite expensive and certainly did not match the menu description.

The food was poor, the service indifferent (why did we pay the high service charge included in the bill?) and the overall experience left everyone feeling they had been "ripped off"!

We paid around £185-00 for eight main courses, some bread and eight drinks (beers, coffee and soft drink) no starters, no deserts, for what was in essence fast food albeit served very slowly!

Not an experience we shall repeat!
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D. Ingrey
2 Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 3 | Value for money 1
Thursday, August 26, 2010

This was a disappointing experience. A group I'm involved with booked this place for a get-together. We each paid 30 quid for a little champagne (one glass each?) and a three-course meal.

The salad tasted nice but was quite average. Some greens, grilled chicken, a little goat cheese topped by some vinegar dressing.

The main was appalling. The dish was supposed to include clams but what we got was five empty clamshells and one with a small clam in it. I complained to the waitress. She said she'd talk to the chef and then never came back.

Dessert was tiramisu and was delicious. You can never go wrong with tiramisu.

I won't be visiting here again.
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TDP - View all reviews by this user
4 Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 3 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 2
Saturday, April 24, 2010

I'm not used to London prices but was still very surprised at being charged £5.95 for a 2/3 bottle of lager; also £1.80 for a tonic water, which was ordered with no ice but nevertheless came with ice. I was nearly caught by the added 12.5% service charge. I wondered how I had missed this on the menu but then I saw at the bottom of the bill 'a 12.5% discretionary service charge has been added to your bill'. On the grounds of the perceived high drink prices and the relatively slow service due to us having little time, I was quick witted enough to have it removed.

Service was slowish and food OK but plain and basic.
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4 Overall rating
Food 5 | Service 4 | Atmosphere 3 | Value for money 2
Monday, June 08, 2009