La Riviera

EP Mooney (24 August 2006)

My wife, a colleague and myself visited La Riviera having enjoyed it on a previous visit to Newcastle in 2005. It was a great disappointment. Firstly, we were shunted upstairs in a brusque manner because there was a wedding downstairs (on a Tuesday!) and were told at the last minute that it was now non-smoking (not indicated when we booked nor in their advertising). The beer served to my colleague was "off" and her pizza was soggy, oily and under-cooked. Pretty poor for an Italian restaurant to get a pizza wrong! My wife was given the wrong meal (pasta shells instead of gnocchi) and all our meals were very average, nothing like our previous visit. When my colleague complained about her pizza to the waiter he shrugged his shoulders and nothing was done. Eventually, I complained to the manageress, who kept going on about their "high levels of service" and "commitment to staff training" etc etc and that the "restaurant was busy". I answered that McDonald's was also busy but that was not what we were paying for. After some unconvincing apologies, she offered us a free bottle of wine, but we said we didn't want any more wine. I waited to see if she would make any deductions from our bill to compensate - I wasn't after any freebies - but she didn't take the opportunity and we were charged full price despite our problems. She was also inconsistent regarding the fact that it wasn't the "regular" chef. Basically, save your money and go elsewhere. Sadly, another example of a restaurant in terminal decline.