Carluccio’s

Went to Carluccios last night with friends and had a lovely evening.
The food is not too expensive. Had the mushroom risotto which was delicious ! Wish the parmesan would stay on the table though…
My friend had the 3 starters for £10 and couldn’t finish it ! Really good quantities and quality.
The set menu doesnt have the best choices but again it has a reasonable price. I guess lunch would be better for that.
The atmosphere is nice, quite romantic inside in the evening with the little candles.
Service was quick. The waitress kept coming and asking if everything was ok.
So in general, we had a great time. I would go back.

Nope. I’m sorry, but nope.
Look, before you judge me, my Mum was desperate to try here. I think the Italian wait-​service, «al fresco dining» (bleurgh we’re in a shopping mall), and pasta romanced her in. I’m not saying I’m above all that, I just knew it to be fluff and nonsense before we even sat down.
I am also being grumpy about it, and I was grumpy whilst we were there, which wasn’t really fair to me ol’ mum. (I paid the bill, which hopefully makes up for some of that.) It’s only May, for goodness’ sake, and it’s the UK — but the blankets are packed away until winter. My WORD it’s cold in Trinity!
The waiter was actually, in the end, kind of sweet. I didn’t enjoy how rushed he made us at points, but it was Sunday and they were closing shortly, I guess. He also had to deal with two utter gits who were drunk and trying to get away without paying, so y’know. Tough job.
But, listen — it’s the substandard food I have an issue with. I just don’t ever feel the love when I’m in a chain, amirite? I ordered the tomato and mozzarella starter. The description sounded like a divine party, worthy of the Roman Gods. The reality was four cocktail sticks with a total of four cherry tomatoes (in halves) and a blob of cheese the size of a pea. What could have been mistaken for an accidental drippage of balsamic coloured the lame, uninspired bed of rocket. Not impressed.
The pasta wasn’t much better. One of my mussel shells didn’t even have mussel in it. The seafood wasn’t ruinously over-​cooked, but it wasn’t delicate. The pasta was stuck together in places like when I fudge making spaghetti at home and some bits are accidentally al dente/​simply not cooked. (You know what I’m talking about. When you don’t bother stirring the saucepan.) I admit, this dish looks like it was meant to be simple (and therefore divine) in its flavour — butter and garlic. But it wasn’t. It was underwhelming and it was just simply below par. (My opinion, of course.)
The courgettes in butter were totally delicious, though. Worth the four quid odd? Defo no. Best thing about it was the bread and butter pudding — but I do LOVE cream. I actually, truly wish that fifty quid had gone to a local, independent resto. I really regret feeding this crappy machine.
Sorry Carluccio’s, I’m SO not into you.

I have been meaning to try Carluccios for a while and I thought today would be my day as I was passing it in Leeds.
My first impression was that a hoarder runs this place and it wasn’t a resturant at all, going into the resturant is like a shop.
They is a place outside where I guess you wait to be seated, but I stayed their a few minutes and no one came.
When I was finally greated by a member of staff when I walked in, I just thought she was an average person as I didn’t see her or any other members of staff wearing uniforms.
I ordered Scrambled Egg with Salmon, i shared a laugh with the waiter and I told him «Don’t make me pronounce it», they have a large gluten free menu with breakfast and gluten free bread, which was nice to see, it is just a shame that the bread was awful.
Service was relativley quick with my drinks and food coming at the same time. I didn’t really like my coffee, it has quite a strong taste, I like coffee quite strong but it didn’t taste the quality it should of been from an itallian resturant.
My meal cost about £7 and I still was hungry after it because it was such a small portion, I admit the scrambled egg was very rich and delicious and the salmon just sweetend the deal but I feel it still isn’t worth that price for how much food I got and simply I left hungry. My friend ordered Eggs Benedict and also had to pay quite a bit of money and he also left hungry and got a small portion.
As I enjoyed my food, I decided to get something else from here, I can’t remember the last time I ordered a dessert, even as a young kid I never ate sweet stuff but today I ordered a sorbet, I decided to opt for Melon.
I was delighted that the waiter offered to get me another flavour, she said you can choose 2 flavours because you get 2 scoops, some waiters would just leave it without telling me, it was nice she let me know that and I got a scoop of mandarin.
The 2 scoops were quite large and cost £3.95. The sorbet was very cold as it normally is but I found the flavour to be quite nice, even though I found the mandarin flavour to be too overpowering the mix of flavours with Melon and Mandarin were quite enjoyable. I was confused that the frozen sorbet took 10 minutes as it is only getting it out of the freezer, one scoop, two scoop, then deliver it to my table which was quite close to the kitchen.
They is a few charging cables so you can charge your devices.
As much as I would love to give more stars, I can only give 3 because the food prices are just too expensive even if it is quite nice, as I left hungry and had to order a dessert, and my friend had to go to another café. It can’t cost that much to make a little bit of scrambled egg, salmon and 2 toast so they should be able to give me more for my money, if I got much more food I would of even considered full marks for this place.
To sum up, the food is delicious but expensive and you leave hungry, as much as I would love to give 4 or even 5 stars, as I said the portion sizes and pricing just lets it down.

Went here for brunch in February with a friend and we were very dissapointed. The food and coffee were cold, there was egg shell in the eggs benedict and the service was extremely slow. We did complain to the waitor about the slow service but there was no explanation or apology even though the restaurant was quiet. I am normally a Carluccio’s fan but I won’t be returning to this branch.

Went there with a friend to have something to drink and a dessert. I had the Torta di frutta and my friend had coffee and fig rolls. My fruit tart came with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and both of them was really yummy and they complimented each other very well. I also tried the fig roll and it was also very tasty.
The service was a bit slow at times. At the beginning they told us to wait so they can clean the table and asked us to wait where the «bakery» part is and they would call us. About 5 mins we thought to go and check and it was cleaned and the waitress was taking an order. It was very busy and i bet if we waited a bit more for her we would have lost the table. Also afterwards once we got the bill the waiter left us and it took about 15 mins before someone notice us that we wanted to pay.
Hopefully next time I go and to try their savory food the service will be better and the food will remain good then i will happily raise my score but for an afternoon dessert and coffee it was 3 stars.

Yes, it is a typical Carluccio’s! Very busy, very good food, good service, very fair prices and you would not believe, that it is part of a chain of restaurants.
Starters were very nice, special recommandations are the Calamary Fritti and the Pâté di Fegatini di Pollo (Chickenliver paté).
In the mains section, the Pan fried calves liver got really good comments, as did all the pasta dishes. If there are two people in for pasta, the choice has to be the tasting trio for two: pick any three out of the choice of pasta dishes to share. Best possibility to try out several things and compare them directly. For me a MUST!
The sorbets, the lemon tarte, the Tiramisu… All worth a sin!
Next time I stumble across a Carluccio’s, I will make sure it is lunch– or dinnertime and I am hungry enough to enjoy three courses!