La Vecchia Scuola

A beautiful looking Italian restaurant, but the food could’ve been better!
I tried the home made pâté with bread and the spaghetti bolognese. Not bad but not great. The pâté was quite good, but the spaghetti bolognese was so-​so. The beef mince in my bolognese was a bit too finely ground for my liking.
The service was good though.
Overall a decent experience but I’ve had better.

Sitting in the sunroom, we enjoyed excellent food and very good service. Grilled goat cheese appetizer was very good, but the strips of croutons were a bit out of place. Gnocchi with Gorgonzola was excellent.
All 6 if us fully enjoyed our food and attentive service.

Very disappointing. Popped in for lunch and the table and cutlery were dirty, the white wine arrived warm. The staff were brusk at best and the food we ordered was quite frankly bland in the extreme. The wine was actually rather good once it had chilled (by the end of the meal). I can not recommend this to anyone.

We had a lovely meal here. The atmosphere is busy but the service is good, the staff are neither in your face or inclined to forget your there. The pace gives you time to enjoy each course and make room for the next. They have a pianist who plays some lovely easy listening type music that does not drown out conversation and entertains.

The décor and ambience of this former private girls school was excellant and the classical piano sheer joy, however this was not matched by the service or the food. The three of us all ordered a different pasta main course and 2 two of us ordered the king prawns on bruschetta as a starter, all five dishes appeared to have the same tasteless sauce which was only made palatable by the addition of copious amounts of parmesan, salt and black pepper. One main course was not recognisable as it was a prawn dish, it was only after a thorough search that one small shrimp was found, the dish was taken away and came back with some more shrimp as the waiter did recognise that a prawn dish should contain some of the main ingredient and did look rather embarrassed even if not overly surprised. Service was also very slow and amateurish.
We did not complain about the meal at the time as we didn’t want to spoil the evening just a pity about the chef.

great italian food and lovely atmosfere. one of best in town

we went out as a birthday treat (13−3−10)
table was booked for 7pm, the restaurant was nice an full, the interior was fantastic and the atmosphere was buzzing.
we where seated at our table by a very brisk head waitress. given menus given and drink orders taken.
there was 3 of us, 1 friend ordered a chef special of a separate menu an myself an other friend ordered the rib eye steak both medium.
food all came together, presented more like pub grub, then fine dining.
the reason, i gave this place 1 star is, both steaks over cooked and very tough! i was a bit confused to why rib eye steak would be tough, so i cut down middle an basically it WAS NOT THE RIB EYE CUT OF MEAT. i love my steaks, an i’ve had enough rib eye to know there is no sinew running through it, or that the steak is cut along the grains of the meat? made me think it was a rump or a flank cut, as my steak was really tough
i stopped eating at this point, an asked my friend what she thought of hers, i really didn’t want to complain, as it was her birthday, she said hers was ok? so asked by my other friend what was up, so i told her an she tried both our steaks an pointed out my friends steak was tougher then mine! the birthday girl really does not like to complain an would have suffered bunched jaw muscles and a strained neck, rather then bring attention to a situtation.
i put my full plate to the side of me, where various waiters walked by? eventully one came by to ask, where i asked to see manager, we explained and he tried to cut my friends steak, and basically couldn’t! so offered us a replacement?
i said no thanks, and he offered us the fillet but i really wasn’t going to eat anymore food from that restaurant.
so both meals went back (as in full plates minus a few mouthfulls of steak) we asked for the bill and the CHEEKY BEGGERS had charged us for the steaks we couldn’t eat! i’d lost the will to live an be polite at this point, an just asked for the money for drinks we’ve had an the 1 meal that was eaten, from my friends an when they came for the money, (£40.00 the total bill was £77.06)i simply told the waiter, there is payment for the drinks and 1 meal, we are not paying for the steaks or the service charge, which the waiter took the bill an money. no one came back after five minutes, so we got up to go.
this is the first time i have ever refused to pay for a meal, it was bad because i’ve had the lunch specials at this restuarant, some time back and it was nice. but after last nights steak-​gate, i won’t recommend having steaks at that resaurant! or going to it. the whole situation could have been handled better by the manager, when we did not want replacement steaks he simply should have taken the steaks off the bill, but the way i see it is, in paying for our drinks etc, they are still in pocket as it would have covered the base costs and a little more!

This is a lovely Italian restaurant in what used to be York College for Girls, and the restaurant has remembered the building’s heritage. There are pictures of the school and its pupils up in entrance hall and the restaurant which used to be the school dining room as well as a small room where there is a mini exhibition. This is a really unusual restaurant.
The food is very good and they offer a wider range of mains than your usual pizza and pasta, with meat and fish dishes on the menu as well. The prices are more than at some other Italians, but then this isn’t part of a chain.
The staff were freindly when I went and the service was reasonably fast, although I have heard that if they are catering for big groups the service is very slow, which is why it isn’t getting 5 stars. A really popular restaurant though.