San
Carlo Italian Restaurant Manchester - reader comments
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"This was our 5th visit to the restaurant. We had some friends down
from Hartlepool and decided to take them there. They thought the
service and food was fantastic. They couldn't get
over the food. We all had fish dishes and it was excellent.
We cant wait to back there." -
sherry tyson, manchester 18/4/08 (visited on a thursday evening)
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"6 of us dined at San Carlo. The food was good,
however, it tended to go cold very quickly. Having booked the table
by phone, on arrival they denied all knowledge of the booking, but
were able to seat us. After 30 minutes they took our food order,
but had not asked us what drinks we required. All in all, the service
was quite simply abysmal; it was slow, and most of the
staff were very disinterested and had a bad attitude (until it was
time for the bill).
Be
Warned; Check your bill! We received our bill, and had been charged
£240. On closer examination, we had been charged for an extra
garlic bread, 3 extra main courses that we had not had, and extra
drinks and vegetables we had not ordered. We queried the bill with
the manager, but did not inform him what the discrepancy was. We
simply asked that we receive the correct bill for what we had ordered.
The bill then miraculously appeared with the correct items we had
ordered on it, and the correct price. We had been over charged
£70 on the first bill.
It is not acceptable in this day and age, particularly as there
is so much competition in central Manchester, to rip people off.
Which is what this restaurant blatantly did. What with this and
the lacksadaisical and very poor attitude to service
we will not be recommending San Carlo or eating there again." -
helen, manchester 22/3/08 (visited on good friday evening) |
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"Reading the reviews on here, I felt compelled to write something.
I've been to 2 San Carlos, one in Leicester and yesterday, the one
in Manchester and I have to say, I wasn't disappointed
by either. The place was pretty full and we were told on the phone
that they were fully booked and that if we turned up in person,
to expect a 20 minute plus wait however when we got in, we got a
table almost immediately and given a few minutes to go through the
drinks menu. With drinks ordered and delivered correctly in no more
than 5 minutes, we went on to order our main course and starter.
The
food arrived little more than 10 minutes later as I would expect
for any food cooked fresh. I had Tuna Carpaccio which was seasoned
to perfection and my fiancee had Crab and Prawn Cakes which
were also delicious - both from the San Carlo blackboard. For our
mains, I went with the Fillet Steak with Red Wine sauce and Pate
with Crouton and had the Petit Pois and French Fries as side order.
My only critiscism is that the steak was served with only a little
bit of green leaves as garnish - all the sides had to be
ordered separately. My other half went for the Stone Baked
Chicken Pizza with Mushrooms. Our main courses came in the time
it took to drink our first glass of wine and tasted fantastic.
Last time I went to San Carlo, I had the Lobster Thermidor which
I thought was exceptional and thought they couldn't top - the steak
managed to not only top it, but completely knock it off it's perch!
The red wine sauce was rich and thick which complimented the perfectly
cooked joyous mound of Fillet Steak that was nicely pink
(as requested). The Petit Pois, while you had to pay extra for them,
were very nicely seasoned and served with chunks
of bacon and thick sliced onions in a slight cream sauce - excellent
accompaniment. My fiancee's pizza was huge but
very tasty. I always judge a stone baked pizza on the base and it
was cooked nicely - not too thick, not too thin
and with just the right amount of topping to pizza sauce ratio!
The
bill was pretty reasonable (£70 odd for 2 starters,
2 mains and a bottle of wine isn't too expensive in my eyes) and
the standard of service was pretty good so overall,
my advice would be for you to judge for yourself. Personally, I
rate San Carlo highly and having travelled the country
and having had a few Italian meals in a good few establishments
around the world, I would rank it definitely within the top 10 Italian
restaurants I've ever eaten in" -
peter dalton, northampton 17/2/08 (visited on a Sunday afternoon)
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"Been three times due to other people, awful everytime!
This a top restaurant? What a joke. Been to better cafes" -
nick evans, manchester 12/2/08 (visited on a Fri lunch) |
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"Food was cold and we were ignored from start
to finish. Ended up having my umbrella stolen. The whole
place is a glorified Pizza Hut. Celeb pictures on the wall, thats
the only way people will come in as the attitude from management
and staff is the worst I have ever had. Honestly. Stay home,
get some nice cold beers and some pasta and pesto from the supermarket.
My girlfriend had invited her friends out with her for her birthday
and she left in tears after the way she was spoken to. I have eaten
in lots of less 'glamorous' places and it has been really good, lovely
service and food. This place is like a spoilt rich kid. Awful.
I spent over £170 in there, gutted. I could have put half of
it in a savings account for my son and enjoyed the rest. Life is too
short to waste what you have in there!" -
Jonathan, Manchester 10/1/08 (visited on a Weds evening) |
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"My absolute favourite restaurant, going again this
weekend! I did hear a rumour that if you get an early booking you
get rushed in and out but I've never found that. God now I'm hungry
thinking about the food, mussells - steak - and some choc cheesecake.
Oh and of course a big glass of Italian wine!" -
Laura Campbell, Manchester 8/8/07 (visited on a Saturday afternoon)
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"Absolutely awful. The restaurant itself is very
attractive and modern and the food is good (nothing
special). Me and my partner went on a Sunday afternoon (around
4pm) and after being sat down on a table cramped in amongst others,
we had to wait quite a bit for someone to take our drinks orders -
my partner ordered a large Coke and got a small one. I ordered water
which came as ordered. Then we ordered food. The starter arrived
after approx. 20mins. We were then sat waiting almost
2 hours before the main course came. It's not helped by the
fact you don't get given any extras - no bread, no
breadsticks, no olives. There were two restaurant managers
walking around completely ignoring us (basically all the
restaurant staff were ignoring us). When we finally got the attention
of one of the managers by actually getting up and following him around
the restaurant, he said he would chase it up. We watched him as he
just continued to walk around, not chasing up the order or helping
out the other waiters once. Again we sat there for a long time until
we again asked another waiter what had happened to our order - he
checked it and brought it out almost immediately, proving it hadn't
been forgotten. After another 10 mins the same waiter brought us pizza
knives even though we'd almost finished the pizza. One guy on another
table got so bored of waiting for his cutlery, he angrily helped himself
to some from an empty table. When we paid we asked for discount
for the waiting time and got the drinks free. Hardly
satisfactory as at no point had waiters asked us if we wanted more
drinks. We only had three soft drinks between us - and one of those
was wrong. But come on - we went there for lunch and it was
evening by the time we left the restaurant. Terrible!!! And
no one apologised or offered anything as compensation, without us
asking. We also noticed loads of other customers sat there for ages
waiting for their food too - there were many who were in the restaurant
before we arrived that got served long after us. They blamed lack
of staff "because it was a Sunday" but we counted 7 waiters,
7 kitchen staff, 3 guys behind the bar, 1 at reception and 2 so-called
managers, hardly a lack of staff!... Extremely disappointing
:( " -
Lilly, Cheshire 2/4/07 (visited on a Sun afternoon) |
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"Having noticed that San Carlo was rated as the top Italian in Manchester
by readers of Restaurants Of Manchester and hearing those culinary
experts, Ant & Dec, were in there last week, I decided to check
it out! I just cannot understand how this establishment comes anywhere
near 'The Top 10 Italian Restaurants in Britain' as the Times claim.
We waited for over one hour and a half to receive our food
and our complaints to the manager were just ignored
- there were two managers on duty; both looked the part but were more
interested in walking up and down looking official rather than actually
managing. Typical Italian I suppose - image over results. When the
food eventually did arrive, my Fillet Al Barolo was basically a steak
on a plate with a load of salty gravy dumped on the
top. No garnish, no extras, no presentation and no
Barolo from what I could taste. It was interesting to watch so many
other customers in the restaurant complaining around us
and even some of those who did receive their food could be heard commenting
about how they were 'not keen' or sent dishes back.
The decor is great, the prices are OK, a little bit
higher than most Italians in town, and the waiting staff were
friendly - even when they were delivering meals to the wrong
tables. The management are appalling and the tables
are a little too close together - especially if you don't
like the taste of cigarette smoke ruining your food. That said, the
smoking ban that hits England in July had almost been implemented
by the time my steak had arrived!" -
Matthew, Manchester 1/4/07 (visited on a Sun afternoon) |
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