Bottelinos Reviews 4

Exceptional service, very friendly and professional staff and excellent food. What's not to like? Couldn't fault it.

Really friendly staff and fabulous view over Portishead Marina. But....very strange experience with the waiter - ordered pinot grigio and the wine was so bad I thought he had made a mistake and served house white. When politely questioned he was very obliging and named a completely different wine ordered and said something about pinot not coming in that size?? So a new wine duly arrived a smaller size but still not brilliant - more comments that didnt seem to fit the conversation. Apart from the eccentric conversation I found his dirty fingernails a bit offputting. The pitza arrived without any sign or comment about the side salad which did come quite soon after when we asked. The pitza was extremely salty and we spent the afternoon drinking water as a result. We ordered a cheesecake for a desert and really not impressed it was more like a set custard. The berry sauce seemed made from scratch but had a strange scented flavour. Have to stress the female waiters were very obliging and friendly but we wont be going back.

Really great service and food was lovely. I will be defiantly going again and I would recommend it to anyone.

BOTTELINO'S - YATE.
Has been open about 2-3 weeks so thought we would give it a try. Arrived at about 1915 without booking and we were told there would be a 5 min. wait while they cleaned and set a table. Asked to wait in the bar area and get a drink. OK so far. On ordering our drinks we were told that it could NOT be added to our meal bill as we did not have a table allocated to us yet. On saying that we were told to wait in bar while the table was laid there must be a tablke number allocated and please could the drinks be put on bill. Refused and had to pay for drinks at bar, had just paid when we were then shown to a table.
Ordered food 2 x calamari Fritti starters £5.95 each 1 x linguini Marianari @ £11.50 1 x Sirloin steak Med/rare @ 18.95 and a Misto (mixed salad) @ £2.95
Calamari arrivedi in cold bowls, with wedge of lemon and mayonaise. NO garnish? 1 bowl contained 6 pieces and the other 6 1/2 pieces effectively £1 per piece. It was obviously from frozen and had been deep fried badly as was soggy, not nice at all and most was left.
Mains arrived Linguini Marianara (clams, prawns, tuna garlic and tomato sauce. again cold bowl and food only just tepid the ingredients were not fresh, tuna tinned as you could taste and smell brine as you bit into it, clams I suggest were from a jar as tasted of vinegar, prawns frozen rather than fresh, garlic and tomato sauce watery and linguini was swimming in it. Steak was ok med/rare, chips were ok but again both steak and chips arrived on cold plate and cold bowl. Misto salad arrived yes this time correctly in a cold bowl but was drenched in olive oil even though it had not been asked for and believe me it was floating and quite unedible. My husband asked for some English mustard and on arrival the ramekin which it came in had 3 huge chips out of the edge of it, although I am sure it had been cleaned it did not look so.
Whilst attempting to eat our starter we were asked if our food was ok. both my husband and I had our mouths full and therefore did not reply immediately, by the time my husband had finished his mouthful to reply we had been tutted at as if it were us that were being rude for not replying and the waiter was walking away. my husband commented that the starter was not thst good and the waiter (who we later found out was the duty manager) came back and said he wasn't walking away. my husband explained that both he and I had a mouthful of food and were therefore unable to reply and he simply walked away.
At the end of what was a grotesque meal we asked to speak to the manager and we were somewhat surprised when the same chap arrived who had been so rude earlier. We started by again saying that the quality of food was very poor and our complaints had gone unnoticed. We pointed out the state of the crockery and were told that he hadn't noticed the chipped edges when he brought to the table even though they were UNMISSABLE due to their size, he said he only brought ot and the chef was resposible for filling the ramekin so he obviously had not noticed either. We Complained about serving food on cold plates. This manager guy was very rude to us and did not accept that they had done anything wrong, he did agree that the chipped ramekin would be thrown away, but would not accept that the food was served on cold plates. He also said that the policy is for people to pay for their drinks at the bar or leave their credit/debit card behind the bar incase "people did a runner" our point was that we were waiting for a table and wanted 1 bill. After Cheap FROZEN, CANNED, JARRED and COLD FOOD. I would AVOID AT ALL COSTS.
Finally no reduction on bill or anything complimentary, really bad service/food/place.