Cucina Creativa

I had the misfortune to be taken in by the fantastic display of cakes in the window of this restatraunt. They were promoting morning coffee & afternoon tea. Impressed by the cakes display, my wife & I ventured in to rest our legs following 5 - 6 miles of on foot sightseeing. Our 1st impression, was quickly replaced by concern, something to do with the overdecorated chintzy interior that was very out of date, and the copiously stained carpet suggested we may have made a wrong choice. We should have smelled a rat and turned tail when we were not given a menu to choose from (hiding something maybe?) Instead we were shepparded to the counter where we made our choices from the very well presented coffee shopesque cakes. I had a coffee & cheese cake & wife had a coke and strawberry tart. Before our food even had chance to arrrive I noticed that they were employing "harrass" tactics on customers who had just finished their coffee. I'm familiar with this as I ran my own coffee shop for 2 years, but I reseved gentle & "not so" gentle hints for very difficult & persistant customers and even then only when we needed the tables. The two little old ladies adjacent to us were encouraged to pay & leave despite the fact that the restaraunt was at about 1/10th capacity (practically empty!) The cakes arrived, smothered with aerosol whipped cream and strawberry ice cream sauce (I kid you not) which I feel was there attempt at a flourish, to justify what they were going to charge us! As soon as I took a mouthful I realiesed that this was simply "thaw and serve" fayre, it was probably the best that Makro had to offer but was fake & dissapointing. My coffee was actually OK, but for £3.50 for a very small basic white coffee you might have expected it to be! Wifes tiny bottle of diet coke £2.95 was, well, cold. I noticed other customers struggling to pay, because they didn't take any plastic payment cards, a brusque "Cash Only" policy was inforce.

Unfortunately when a restaurant refuses to offer jug of complimentary water with your expensive bottle of wine one should be wary of what is to come. Out of 4 meals 1 was ok 2 were poor 1 was awful .The final surprise came with the bill on returning the slip with a credit card we were told CASH ONLY after a bit of a scramble around and digging through our pockets we paid up and left vowing never to return.