I visited Don Giovanni's for the first time with a group of friends on Saturday night. If you want to skip the rest of the review, the gist of it is that none of us are likely to ever go back!

The main problem with the experience was the length of time it took. We had a table booked for 8.30 but weren't shown to our table until nearly 9. It was 11pm by the time we all got our main courses so we were getting pretty hungry and irritated, especially those of us that hadn't had starters!

The restaurant had clearly overbooked due to the nearby Labour party conference, as lots of other diners were having the same problems. There were six people in our party but we were crammed onto a table clearly intended for four. Luckily we're all good friends! Other groups looked similarly crowded and there was a definite feeling of being squashed in like sardines.

If the food had been amazing, it would almost have been worth the wait, but sadly it wasn't to be. The food was pretty mediocre and certainly not worth the inflated prices. I had a seafood dish but the quality of the ingredients was really no better than a packet from Tesco. I've had a similar dish from the chain restaurant Zizzi that had much plumper and tastier seafood and much more flavour to the dish, so there was really no benefit in paying extra for the more expensive decor and the waiter's Italian accents! Drinks were too expensive too, the house wine was £17 a bottle and half a pint was nearly £4. It felt like mediocre chain quality food at independent high quality prices. I can't comment on the desserts as by the time we finally had a dessert menu it was getting close to midnight and we felt we'd spent enough time in there!

Credit where its due though, the manager we spoke to in order to complain about our lengthy wait was very apologetic and knocked 25% off the bill which made the cost for such a poor experience a little easier to stomach. Unfortunately not all the staff are so professional as one of the main attractions of the evening was an argument between an unhappy customer and the young chap at the front desk who appeared to have gone to the Italian version of the Basil Fawlty school of customer relations. Every head was turned in their direction, I felt sorry for the customer being shouted at.

So all in all, we won't be in a huge hurry to go back to Don Giovanni's!