La Gondola Di Leonardo

Although it looks ok from outside I was highly disappointed by the whole experience once I’d been seated at a table.
The first warning sign (& one that I should have acted on by leaving), was when the sole waiter (the owner I presume) brought over a small plate containing limp carrot sticks & celery with a dish of thousand island dressing. In one fell swoop I was back in the 1970s & all the culinary delights that period entailed. At this point I became very nervous as to what I should order & my thought process was along the lines of …“what can they not screw up”. I decided to bypass the starter & go straight for a pretty safe pasta dish for my main course. My partner however was feeling a little braver & decided to order from the ‘meal deal’ menu.
The part baked bread rolls we were served some time before our starter arrived were tasteless & over cooked (i.e. burned)
The place was far from busy, in fact the 2 tables occupied had already eaten or had just been served their main course. Another couple had chosen the table outside. So pretty quiet for a restaurant that easily had 30+ covers.
However it still took well over 15mins for my partners starter of deep fried camembert to arrive. When it did we were both amazed/​shocked at what arrived. But game to give anything a go we both ventured in…& were left distinctly unimpressed. The salad appeared to be drowned in salt, the camembert itself — apparently mama is to cheap to even shop at Iceland — the identikit cheese pieces appeared to have come frozen from a packet & reheated, but surely not even Iceland food is that bad is it?
Giving the starter up as a bad job, we decided that we would give the benefit of the doubt & stick around to try the main course. However after 25mins this had still not arrived — I’d only ordered pasta in a sauce & my partner a fish dish. 3 more people had arrived at the restaurant whilst we were waiting on out starter & another couple after our starter had been cleared — this was not a busy restaurant — why on earth was it taking so long.
I’m more than happy to wait for food to be cooked but this was verging on the ridiculous. My partner tried to get the attention of the waiter a number of times to no avail & eventually had to shout out a couple of times. We were assured it would be ‘coming now’, however it didn’t. At this point we decided to cut our losses & leave paying for an overpriced starter.
What frustrated me all the more is that just 10mins down the road in Victoria Park there is a fantastic Italian at around the same price & the food/​service is superb. My advice would be to head there instead.

La Gondola is a friendly and intimate little restaurant very near the popular Florist pub on Globe road. They do some really nice authentic Italian food, and you’ll be left very happy by the bill. Main courses start at about £7 but you will possibly need some vegetables to share on the side, for another few pounds.
The service is really swift and the staff were very warm and gracious, it’s definitely somewhere I’d return to for a quiet night, but not exactly somewhere I’d recommend for a taking someone out.