Caffe Zonzo

Richard Kain (29 September 2006)

We went to Caffe Zonzo as a family, two adults and twin 5 year old boys, early one Thursday evening. We had a fantastic meal. The boys loved the vegetarian pasta, my wife had the seafood starter as a main course and I had the sausage casserole which was very tasty. We had a bottle of superb house white wine to accompany it, and then the boys had a delicious lemony chocolaty dish from the specials board (projected onto the wall - very clever) for pudding. The atmosphere was great, the waitress who served us was lovely with the boys. All in all I could not recommend it more highly. We will certainly be going back on a regular basis.

Gaby VG (7 September 2006)

I went to Zonzo's restaurant with work colleagues with high expectations. I was looking forward to high quality food, service and environment. Sadly only one of these expectations materialised. The place looks great, authentic modern Italian style. The service was disappointing to say the least. As we were seated, the bread arrived which was slightly stale. As I am from Holland, I speak up if something is not quite right so I asked for some fresh bread.

20 minutes later a confrontational restaurant manager stopped the table chat with 'What is wrong with the bread? It is baked in house each day' I was taken aback by her aggressive attitude and slightly embarrassed in front of my work group. I replied that I was sure it was freshly baked however had clearly been cut a while ago - it was definitely stale! She was very hostile about this but agreed to bring us a fresh portion. 5 minutes later she came back and asked each member of the group if the bread met our satisfaction - this was done with a frown on her face.

I have worked in restaurants and if the tables were turned (ha) I would have been discreet and would have used the ‘customer is always right' theory I chose the aubergine parmigiana for my main course, unfortunately this was as dry as the managers attitude. I will not return to Zonzo's and would recommend Pani's or Paradiso if you are looking for a good friendly authentic Italian restaurant.