This was my first, and probably only, visit to this restaurant. This is probably the Italian restaurant with the worst service I have ever been to.

We (3 of us) arrived at aboit 1:30pm to find the upper level closed. There were only 4 guests in total dining then. There were nobody greeting us or taking us to the table. The staff were cold and answered us with an unwelcoming tone. Anything we ask, they replied "wait". Even when we only waved to signal for service, the staff replied "wait".

There was no issue with the food. We ordered pizza, penne and a beef sirloin, which were all from the set lunch menus. However, when we were finishing off the food, the waitress came over to tell us that they had given us the pizza of an "a la carte" size by mistake. I noticed one of the tables with two foreigners ordered two pizzas and they were the same size as ours. Another table of local Chinese guests who arrived later than us, got a smaller pizza than ours. What did she mean by that -- charging us extra ? Well, she did not but that was very rude of her.

If not for its poor, pathetic service, this restaurant should have been a success given its highly acclaimed chef and its location. Would its management consider removing their existing staff ? I mean all the two waitresses we met exhibited the same cold, impolite manners and their English were poor. Is the management planning to manage this restaurant in a more up-market manner or downgrade it to the same level as a local teahouse ? Mind you, the service at a local teahouse are already much better than here.

I have had a similar experience as the review below me mentions.

I had a Groupon. The conditions stated that I had to make a reservation before I went there. However, whenever I had called them - I either did not get through or I was told that they are fully booked. So, I decided to turn up there a little early in the evening at 6pm and try to get a seat.
When I went there - It was absolutely empty. So, I was hopeful that I would get a seat.

When we went in, the waitress was about to usher us to a table, when one of the other waitresses (all the waitresses are philipinos) asked us if we have a groupon. As soon as I said "Yes", their entire behaviour changed. They asked me if I had a booking or not. When I said "No", they said that they are fully booked and I need to return with a booking.

I was stunned !! It was unbelievable !!! I could see that the whole restaurant is empty except for one table in the corner. The whole restaurant was empty !! If they cannot afford coupons, they should not issue them.

Anyways, I could see that they were not in good faith and I was feeling cheated. There was no point to argue as they were being quite rude and shameless about it.



I will NEVER VISIT AGAIN.

We were using Groupon for dinner here. Menu only have 6 choices and 2 unavailable! We are forced to choose from regular menu (no discount anymore!) The service was terrible. There are a lot of empty seats. We booked for 7pm but the waitress insisted that we should leave at 8pm. At last, she served the food at 8:30pm. After we finished the food, she insisted us to pay the bill and leave at 9pm! At that time they still have a lot of vacant seats! The food taste is normal but the service is really bad! Recommend don't use Groupon to try this restaurant!

For the groupon HKD149 for 2 pax for dinner, I went to this Italian restaurant with three Italian guys.

The set dinner included:

Appetizer
brusthetta with fresh tomato, garlic and basil: the bread was fine and the toppings were lovely.soup or salad of the day. The soup of today was cream of broccoli, which wasn't bad, and the green salad was fresh and included cherry tomatoes. The salad was served plain and balsamic vinegar and olive oil were provided. The taste was quite good.

Main Course
spaghetti with cuttle fish black ink sauce: This was my dish and it was covered with plenty of ink sauce, which was delicious. The only complaint was that the cuttle fish was very tiny and not much in portion. spaghetti with original bolognaise sauce: The bolognaise sauce was not very remarkable that the only comment was 'just fine'pan fried sole fillet in white wine or marsala sauce. The food was served lukewarm and was clearly not freshly cooked. Dessert:

zabaglione: an Italian dessert made with egg yolks, sugar and sweet wine. The taste was smooth and creamy.

mousse cake: too sweet for us.Drinks
extra $48 for 2 glasses of house wine In general, it was a disappointing dinner. Though we had booked the table a week in advance, the staff had to put two tables together for us when we arrived there. The staff, a group of Filipinos, were very mediocre and clearly not customer-oriented. The house red wine was flat and tasteless. I guess that's what we get for $24/glass. Although the restaurant promotes itself as an authentic upscale Italian dining experience, the service was not upscale, nor was the food what I would call Italian. The dishes arrived at different times. For example, my boyfriend's mum, her main dish was served even before she'd finished her salad. Were we in the local cafeteria茶餐廳? Again, no sense of service. And as I said earlier, the food was average, not fresh and not even served HOT. This is definitely not something we expected from the fancy restaurant~

went there cus we won a voucher and it was a pleasant surprise.

we ordered the monthly special with salad, pizza anf dessert. the salad was a nice green salad with pomodorini, asparragus and shaved parmiggiano which was nice and fresh. the pizza was a tad undercooked but after having it sebt back to the oven it was nice and crunchy.

we also ordered the linguine with lobster cooked in a tomato and cognac sauce and it was amazing. definitely recommend it!!

for drinks we haf the house red wine which was of good quality.

as a nice touch is the fact that the chef is actually cooking on the dining floor so you get all these gorgeous aromas throughout dinner.

in general it was above our expectations and its a definite recommendation when craving for something more other than the standard italian pizza-pasta restaurant.

My daughter picked this restaurant as she wanted to have Gnocchi and Grappa's was fully booked. We were disappointed. We had a large margherita pizza, gnocchi gorgonzola, Risotto with mushrooms and Tortellini stuffed with spinach.

Not enough tomato sauce in the pizza. Gnocchi was too salty. Tortellini was too salty and oily. Risotto was ok.

Considering the taste and price, it was not very good value.

Had a craving for gnocchi and tortellini, and I found just the right place, gnocchi are rare, but common in upscale restaurants.

Usually the menu offers one choice of gnocchi and tortellini, but here it offers from 4-6 different sauces!!!

For gnocchi, there six different sauces to choose from:
1)Tomato and basil
2)Tomato and bacon
3)Tomato shrimp and chilli
4)Butter and sage
5)Gorgonzole cheese sauce (blue cheese)
6)Tomato, pesto and creamFor Tortellini there are four different sauces to choose from
1)Butter and sage
2)Imported cream
3)Cream and tomato sauce
4)Bolognaise and creamThe atmosphere here is very upscale, infact I felt like I was dining in Central.For lunch, they have set lunches, and two pages for the tortellini and gnocchi.

The lunches include soup/salad, bread, drinks and dessert.
Although it may be pricey, but it is truly worth it, however you need at least 1.5 hours as they are quite short staffed.
Even on Mondays all the tables manage to fill up.

Tried two versions of Gnocchi, one with gorgonzola cheese and the other with butter and sage.
The cheese was quite strong of blue cheese taste, but was not as creamy as it looked, and the butter and sage was quite nice to get the real taste of Gnocchi, and it reminds me of baked potato and butter.

As for the tortellini, it was gorgeous, piping hot tortellini in plentiful sauce.
However, the portions could have been bigger, even with dessert, starter and drink, I still felt hungry.

The bread given was soft aromatic white focaccia with onion, which were excellent dipping them into vinegar and olive oil.The soup and starter are also good, depending on what they serve that day, good soups include green pea soup and vegetable soup which is very wholesome containing lots of kidney beans.My favourite starter is the egg and asparagus, which has some alchohol in it.
The dessert is either chocolate mousse or zabaglione, but the texture of both is slightly dry, and tasted a bit like artificial cream.Zabaglione is an Italian dessert made with egg yolks, sugar, a sweet wine (usually Marsala wine, but in the original formula Moscato d'Asti), and sometimes whole eggs. It is a very light custard, which has been whipped to incorporate a large amount of air.

Had the seafood pasta, good with many varieties of clams, better than what I had in Firence. Pizza is good too.
Great relife when I came in and saw the chef is a fat Italian, you know you are getting some authentic Italian food, hahaha..

Will take some pics next time.

Service: Bad, slow, and very arrogant....when I tried to order, the staff never really paid attention to me...I always have to repeat what I said...kept on giving us the wrong cutlery

Food: expensive but bad quality, I feel like back to the UK where I had to eat pizza with only cheese and tomato sauce in order to save money...none of their pizzas are actually properly done...the first one they served me was not even cooked...

drinks: ok, normal price...

Portion: extremely small considering its price (over $100 per dish)

Variety: lack of any good choices of food

Conclusion: will never go back~

I have been to the first La Piazzetta restaurant a few times with the same friend who recommended it and when I saw a branch open up in Wanchai, I thought it was worth trying as there are not many authentic Western restaurants in that part of Wanchai.

I went with a friend and we both had salad to start, this and the bread were both a bit boring, the bread could have been hot or Italian but it wasn't. The salad had no dressing and we were expected to add our own olive oil and vinegar. Then we shared 2 pastas that we both wanted to order. Penne Arrabiata which was a little spicy, vegetarian and cooked al dente. The waitress came to grate some fresh parmesan cheese on the top with her electric grater.

Linguine Mariana was not as it would be in the Soho branch. There were lots of clams, a few prawns, some small razor blade clams. In the Soho branch, there were more variety of shellfish and I think a big scallop with shell. Anyhow, I think they may use whatever shellfish they can find fresh in the market that day and could be totally different from the next day. Although the sauces of the 2 pastas looked similar, they tasted very different. The penne had a spicy tomato flavour and the linguine had a seafood fish stock type flavour. So we were glad we shared and the seafood dish was too huge even for the 2 of us. In fact, we didn't finish either pastas but liked them a lot.

Coffee was nice and strong and we thought this was a nice little restaurant good for lunch for it was relatively quiet and not full. The service however is like the restaurant in Soho, neither slick nor cheerful.