Cantina del Ponte

Yesterday I went to Cantina with other two friends. We decided to try Evening Standard offer (3 courses for £15) Before booking I had a look at the menu and it looked pretty reasonable for the price. Unfortunately when I received my starter I realized, that booking this place was huge mistake! My rocket mozzarella salad was very bad, full of salt, I usually don’t add any salt to my salads, so this one tasted really bad for me. Rocket was not fresh, and mozzarella was chewy and tasteless, there were just two small pieces of it. In the restaurant which is branded one of the best in London I would expect buffalo mozzarella. Anyway, with ingredients from Tesco I would have made a much better salad when this. My friends said they liked their starters, but I suspect that they were just polite.

Mains where even worse. Vegetable lasagne barely had any vegetables in it, just some odd pulp (probably Béchamel sauce by their understanding) It was very poorly presented and tasted awful. My friend was not impressed by their chicken in tomato sauce either.

Desserts we chose from the main menu as we wanted something with chocolate. Desserts were good, but nothing special.

Wine bottle cost £23.5 and came with screw top! It tasted all right, but was not worth the price charged for it.

All in all very disappointing meal at Cantina del Ponte. For the same price, you could get much better food and wine at Carlucio’s. Food was not worth what we were charged, and on the main menu same dishes were even more expensive, which makes them a total rip off. People sitting next to us didn’t seem to enjoy their dinner either.

The only good thing about yesterday’s dinner was great view to the Tower Bridge and great location. Service was friendly and quiet good. Cantina is nothing else then tourist trap and I don’t recommend it to anyone.
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6 Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 4
Monday, September 10, 2012

Very mediocre food and bad service! The menu is short and does not have enough variety. Some of the dishes make no sense at all in terms balance and compatibility of ingredients. The classics are not up to the standard that a upmarket restaurant should have. Generally the dishes are quite boring and therefore bad value for money. Furthermore the dessert did not match its description in the menu and we got no warning from the waiter. When we pointed it out the waiter started arguing. He also asked how was the food and when we pointed out the problems the waiter started arguing again and trying to prove to us that we were wrong and that everything is great. What is the point of asking for feedback then?? Very disappointing.
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Anna
2 Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 6 | Value for money 0
Saturday, February 18, 2012

Great location with a nice atmosphere but the food is awful.

I ordered the 2 courses deal for £14 or something like that, which I thought was a really good deal, until the food arrived.

I got a starter of bruschetta, which was dry, boring and tasteless. Then for the main I had pesto pasta, which incidentally was also dry, boring and tasteless. Absolutely no flavour in anything, I had a feeling of intense dissatisfaction afterwards although my belly was full.

Service was friendly and polite however I won't return due to the appalling quality of food.
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Martha
5 Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 2
Monday, July 18, 2011