Strada Restaurants

Basic Italian restaurant serving pizza and pasta dishes in the heart of West End.
I must say that I try to actively avoid giving a restaurant a low rating, but unfortunately on this occasion I could not think of any other explanation as to why I should increase my star rating.
First things first was the customer service. After entering into the restaurant you could automatically tell that it was not busy and waiters were not rushing around, so, where were they? We didn’t have to wait long at all to be seen to, but there was no warm welcome just a woman staring and waiting for us to tell her how many of us were dining today in which it was just 2 (which was quiet obvious as there were no other customers behind us) and so she just escorted as down to our table.
Second of all, without explaining all the events there was a constant battle when saying items off of the menu and the woman who was our waiter looking lost in thought and then trying to cover up her tracks with the usual «oh, could you repeat that». If it had happened on the one occasion, then fair enough but this was a consistent battle and found this quiet rude as she understood us very clearly.
Last of all was the poor effort of her trying to put on a smile and be customer friendly. It was in a sense alright to see her trying and I do understand working for long period of hours with customers isn’t always ideal but many people do work for restaurants and pull of the smile and the general chit chat, but not her as well as witnessing a few waiters just dotted around grouped up looking bored whilst in clear view of customers which isn’t a good look.
Food:
To my surprise I thought after such bad service, the food would be great, yet still that too was a disappointment. I had ordered the ‘Cavatappi Pollo Crema’ which contained: corkscrew pasta, chicken and sliced mushrooms in tarragon sauce and because I was extra hungry, I had ordered it with added parma ham on top. We have all had food that did not have taste, but this was overly seasoned. At first I could eat it whilst having my wine wash it down and then it could to am unbearable point where all I could taste was seasoning which did not compliment the food at all and to make things worst, it was not as hot as it should have been and that was just the pinnacle of bad for my evening.
**Well lit atmosphere but customer service and food required the same lightning as the atmosohere. Food although unbearable to eat was good in portion and looking around at the other types of food I could see they always serve big. Maybe this was a one off, maybe if I return and ordered a pizza at another location I’ll have a different view, but until then, my whole experience at ‘Strada’ on Panton Street was not worth paying a penny for and left me hungry and angry afterwards**