Strada - Birmingham Mailbox

AJS (17 November 2008)

We have been to Strada before, but unfortunately won't be going back for a long while. My fiancé and I went to this restaurant on Saturday. We had made no reservation, but had retained some tables so fortunately we were fitted in. On arrival no one took our coats and after being shown to our table, we went and hung them up ourselves. After a few minutes the waitress asked if we were ready to order and we ordered a bottle of red wine and some table water. After five minutes a waiter produced the wine, asking 'did you order the wine', and when we acknowledged this he said do you want me to open it, and then just left it on the table. Our waitress did apologise for this and poured our wine. We asked again for the water. Around five or ten minutes later we were ready to order, and ordered some bread to share with oil and vinegar. We specifically asked for this to be served before the starters, a polenta and the gnocchi. We also asked again for the water. After asking about three or four times our water finally arrived. Shortly after this our bread arrived but with no olive oil or vinegar. After a few minutes we got the waitresses attention and asked for this, she came back around five minutes later and said she'd had to search the whole restaurant, which was surprising given that there was barely enough for one piece of bread. Before we had even started our second piece of bread from our basket, our starters arrived. We had to eat these to ensure that they were still warm. I really enjoyed the polenta and the gnocchi was quite nice.

Around twenty minutes to half an hour later our mains arrived, although we had no cutlery. My fiancé had the salmon, and I had ordered the orrecchiette with broccoli and sausage. The salmon was excellent, however the pasta can only be described as on or below the par of university cooking; completely dry unseasoned pasta, with the soggy broccoli, and the only moisture coming from the fat off the sausage. Within a few mouthfuls I asked the waitress - as I had never eaten this dish before - if it was meant to be this dry. She professed to not know the menu and offered me a sauce. She returned with some tomato sauce, but the pasta had been under the lights and was all stuck together. Needless to say I didn't eat it. We finished our wine and then began to wait for the bill. We could and probably should have just walked out without paying at this point, so inattentive were the staff. After twenty minutes, when our plates were still not cleared, we mentioned it to the manager. He had just cleared the plates of some ladies who arrived twenty minutes after us and who had also complained. This was a common theme on this night as a lot of people had to get up and ask for their bill. The manager came over and we had a discussion. He professed to having been busy, but there weren't people waiting for tables. The restaurant was just full, and it was poorly staffed and poorly managed. He also pointed out that my dish was meant to be dry and that the sauce had ruined it. He felt that taking 15% off the bill was adequate; this didn't even cover my dish, and the waitress looked disgusted when we suggested that we were not going to pay service. We ended up paying just under £50 and really should have complained more but we'd been there nearly two and a half hours, and just wanted to get out of there. To be fair to the waitress, she had tried but she was doing everything; at the door, getting the drinks, serving and taking orders all of which resulted in this terrible service. Overall the experience can only be described as awful and my main dish, which looking at the website two days later had been removed from the menu, was really bad.

Dimple (21 July 2008)

My boyfriend had called Strada two weeks prior to my birthday to make a reservation, the person there told him come along and there was no need to book. My birthday came and we turned up at 8pm only to be told there would be a 50-55 minute wait, we said we didn't book because we were told we didn't need to. The man then said they don't take bookings for less than three people. We were absolutely disgusted and will never go back again.

See more reviews of Strada - Birmingham Mailbox