San Carlo - Birmingham Reviews Summary

Service

Pros:

• "Service was fast and staff were friendly."
• "The staff were excellent and the food is of a very high standard."
• "The service was amazing, our waiter Carmelo was so amazing the most friendly and welcoming person as well, and made sure we had everything."
• "Service wise you are dealing with true genuine Italian people. Attentive and politeness springs to mind here."
• "Superb waiter service as well and even though the restaurant was busy, we thoroughly enjoyed our meal."
• "Staff are really friendly and accommodating."
• "The staff are very friendly and attentive even on busy days."

Cons:

• "The service really needs improvement."
• "The service was dreadful."
• "Poor management and poor customer service."
• "Overall we had around 7 people that were serving our table, a different one every time, so pretty much no one to truly look after us."
• "Staff didn't make efforts to check in on us."
• "The only thing we didn’t really like is staff, as we felt like they were criticising us as we were young."
• "The service was completely appalling."

Food Quality

Pros:

• "The food was great as well and will definitely try to return again."
• "Good variety of meat and fish dishes and of course plenty of pasta."
• "The food was amazing! I would definitely recommend the penne salmone and the truffle and Parmesan chips."
• "Salt chilli squid was incredible and the truffle pasta is to die for."
• "The food was very fresh and the flavors of the dishes were perfect."
• "The food was absolutely immaculate and worth it."
• "The food was absolutely cooked perfectly."

Cons:

• "Easily the worse Italian restaurant in Birmingham seafood was rubbery, pasta was dry and overcooked."
• "The food was not worth the money, the steak was not cooked to request, the fries were soggy."
• "The starter was pretty bland but the Spaghetti Gamberoni was really quite terrible."
• "Food was unfortunately underwhelming lacking depth of flavour, portion size and general effort and passion in delivery of food."
• "The sausage had a very smoky and rich texture to it."
• "Food was very bland. My £12.50 starter was a tiny, tasteless joke, the main was even worse."
• "The food expectations were high but again it was very bland, dry and lacked the most basic flavours."

Ambience & Decor

Pros:

• "A lunch with some friends on a very hot summer's day. There was a busy but quiet atmosphere helped by the air conditioning."
• "Restaurant has beautiful decor."
• "Fantastic place!"
• "Great venue (those photos on the hall of fame are spectacular!)"
• "The glorious decor."
• "The atmosphere was magical, exceptional."
• "The decor is lush."

Cons:

• "Extremely hot restaurant (no air con) which made the experience not great."
• "The noise in this restaurant was unbelievable."
• "It is becoming very much a common high st eaterie but charging a lot more money...consider options and pocket as its nothing special."
• "The esthetics was slightly cold and dull."
• "Both were very bland, pasta over cooked..too soft..not much lobster either!"
• "Felt crowded and lacked atmosphere."
• "Lighting..very bright.. not relaxing.."

Price & Value

Pros:

• "In terms of price, I would say not cheap."
• "A very good menu at a reasonable price."
• "Reasonably priced well prepared food in a great atmosphere."
• "3 people 4 courses and drinks and coffee £228 was reasonably priced."
• "Great value and lovely food (...and wine)."
• "The prices are worth the quality of the food you’ve get served!"
• "Great ambience and priced very well."

Cons:

• "The food was not worth the money."
• "The prices were very high (paid £26 for a bowl of Lobster risotto, which I wouldn't recommend)."
• "It’s a shame because we paid 106£ for this dinner which was NOT actually an Italian dinner and it should not have costed more than 50£ based on the quality of food."
• "The drinks are very overpriced with £4.95 for a Diet Coke of a regular sized glass."
• "But I felt like the meal was poor value for money at £70ph and you can probably get better bang for your buck elsewhere."
• "This is an above average priced restaurant and given its history and clientele, it is justified in the area we are in."
• "Food was lovely but over £20 service charge for 4 of us!!"

Customer Service

Pros:

• "From the friendly and attentive staff, to the glorious decor, this is a wonderful restaurant."
• "Their smile, their kindness, was all over the place."
• "Thank you to the amazing staff."
• "The staff there were so nice and attentive."
• "Service was swift, staff attentive and food and drinks were promptly brought to our table."
• "The waiters & waitressing staff were very attentive."
• "The staff were lovely and attentive."

Cons:

• "It was very bad experience specially, from the manager he was unprofessional talking to a customer."
• "I found them to be rather unfriendly overall."
• "Booked a table for four here several weeks in advance but were treated like walk in guests on arrival."
• "The only thing we didn’t really like is staff, as we felt like they were criticising us as we were young."
• "The waiters were inattentive, rude and unhelpful."
• "I am absolutely disgusted in the poor customer service and racism we received from within this restaurant."
• "The service was really bad, with six different people serving us and none of them seemed to know what they were doing."