Zizzi..... a very Strange experience (Zizzi (Cheltenham))

Member Name: coffeeman

Product:	Zizzi (Cheltenham)
Date:	18/08/09 (36 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Nice Venue

Disadvantages: Very poor food

This was my forst visi to Zizzi for 9 years, so I went in with an open mind not knowing what to expect. The venue is really very nice, a converted church in a very smart suburb of Cheltenham and the whole thing is very tastefully done so from a comfort point of view, so far so good. I went with my 2 children (5 & 8) and they both went for the kids menu at £5.95 which for a nibble, Pizza and ball of ice cream seemed like pretty good value. I had a Pizza and a beer, you cant go wrong... or so I thought. The waitress was charming and really looked after us however the positive stuff really ends there. I had high hopes but as usual it (for me at least) descended into the same old chain restaurant experience of mediocre ( i am being kind) food dirty glasses and a confusing bill. The Pizza was very poor indeed, as an Italian I have to declare interest here, I have experienced this, one of our national culinary treasures, in every corner of Italy and I think that this quality of pizza is what I would reasonably expect in a motorway service station. Industrial and indigestible dough covered with semolina flour for texture (thats the dusty coating on the base) and smeared with a sweet sickly tomato sauce and mozarella that sets like concrete after 5 minutes, and poor quality toppings. As I said perfectly acceptable in a filling station, not in a serious pizzeria, serve stuff like that in italy and you could well end up being deported! My kids were as unimpressed as I was and left half of theirs. The experince was toppoed off by a farcical conversation over the bill, I noticed that I had been over charged on the kids menus to the tune of £4 and when I queried this with the manager he informed me that as I had asked for a little ham to be added to the kids mushroom pizza he had to charge an extra topping, in other words 4 small slices of ham for £4 erm hang on thats £1 per slice is it not, the reply "thats the price of the topplings im afraid". Hmmmmm "is that written on the menu"? i asked, reasonable question i thought, "erm no sorry it doesnt actually say it on our menus" I was losing the will to live at this point but then came the killer line "well sir if you want to question the bill then there is a mark up, i mean that beer that I have charged you £5.50 for I actually buy in for £1.60" .... What!!! was he being serious, like I want to know the margin on each item..... holy moly. Well as "gesture of goodwill" he removed the £4 ham (which incidentally I would estimate at around 5g per slice making a Kg worth a handsome £200...nice work if you can get it) The corrected bill duly arrived, I then noticed that the artichokes I had asked for instead of olives on my pizza were also charged at £2, that is to say 6 Quarter artichoke hearts out of a tin or £1.32 per artichoke heart..... i was starting to get irritable and sent him away again to rebalance the books a second time..... Sometimes I despair of these chain restaurants, they start as nice little quality businesses that are then sold on to private equity firms run by greedy investors looking to turn a monstrous profit at the expense of their long suffering customers & staff by charging £1.32 for a tinned artichoke. Despite this bizzarre experience I really felt for the staff, many of whom it seemed didnt have a blinking clue what they were doing but were really trying hard to look after the customers and were probably being paid a pittance for the privilege so I left them a tip anyway as I think they deserve it especially as I am back at home writing my tale of woe enjoying a glass of chilled Pinot Grigio and they are still at the restaurant flogging ham at £200 per Kg to disgruntled cutomers who never spotted it on the menu beacause it aint there....... hey ho....

Summary: Another chain restaurant thats gone pear shaped