A WUM's Dream

I was with you, on not ruining the guy's livlihood - but ****en hell, he seems like a right victim.


“Works Night Out”
2 of 5 starsReviewed 26 August 2014

We were here for a works night out. Staff were friendly enough but when it came to choose our dinner it we were told we could only coose from the 1 menu, not 1 or the other which was a bit awkward as we all wanted different things. The meal was "average", one member of our party had to send her dinner back as the mussels were "off". When it came to the end of the night the staff seemed to be in a rush to get rid of us as it was 11pm, in the end we all left, but were all in agreement that we wouldn't be back again.


Visited August 2014

3 of 5 stars Value
2 of 5 stars Atmosphere
4 of 5 stars Service
2 of 5 stars Food

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QuaRestaurant, Manager at Qua Italian Restaurant, responded to this review, 31 August 2014

My adverse experience with most of you (not all- there were some genuine/polite diners among you) was a 1/5. I had the dubious pleasure to assist my very good/popular/friendly waiter Giorgio in dealing with you all as his “section” was very busy indeed all night and so I helped him as much as I could. The first four ladies in your group who arrived a half hour or so before the other 5/6 selfishly whined about “having to take a set menu” as “not everyone wants to take a four course meal” and “there is more choice on the a la carte menu”. These groans were made to myself and at least 3 of my other waiters repeatedly for around 15 minutes. As I tried to explain more than once, the person who booked the table requested the set menu for you all, but as it was a relatively small number (around 10) I could remove the set menu and give you all the a la carte menu instead. Said four ladies (most likely one of which was you) were still not satisfied with this, presumably, because they are not accustomed to being told “no” in their lives very often.
I am prevented (because of this website’s sensible management response guidelines/rules) from treating your ignorant defamation (regarding the mussels you stated as being “off”) with the response it truly deserves. It is offensive in the extreme and the most preposterous and unreasonable comment I have ever seen on a review on this site. Not even the lady who complained about the dish and whom I ordered another seafood spaghetti for (minus any mussels) said they were “off”. Indeed, she acknowledged that two other diners at your table were eating the same dish (Spaghetti alla Marinara) without complaint (I did ask them too) and seemed to understand that our head chef (obviously) had prepared the sauce and mixed seafood for all three dishes in the same pot before adding in the pasta and plating-up the 3 dishes. She said that ONE of the mussels in her dish didn’t taste right. I told her that I’d be happy to have another dish prepared but that as the mussel she didn’t enjoy appeared normal visually and had opened when it cooked, the same problem would likely be encountered if we gave her the same dish again. Your colleague, should you wish to know, even came to the bar area later before she left to thank me for the way I dealt with the matter and speedily got our head chef to prepare another seafood spaghetti dish. Whilst no-one likes being lectured in front of others and so I did not labour the point at the table in front of everyone at the table at the time of her complaint over one of the mussels in her original dish: mussels are filters of the sea and feed on highly bacterial algae. At the end of a very good summer (such as we had this year), it is not the best time to eat mussels if you are a precious individual. All we can do is clean them and cook them and if they open (indicative of them being live at the time of cooking but not 100% conclusive) and look and smell fine then we serve them. We cannot taste every single mussel. In fact, for obvious reasons, we cannot taste ANY of the mussels at all that we eventually serve to the customers. You and the lady who complained about the dish appear to know very little about mussels. I know a lot about them as I have to in order to perform my job well (which for the most part I manage to pull-off). Additionally, I eat mussels 2/3 times per week and whenever I come across a mussel which doesn’t smell or taste right, I don’t eat it. I don’t then blame the person who prepared it unless the mussel was closed when it was served to me (safer just to discard such mussels in a restaurant). I just put it down to one of those things which happens when you eat a delicacy which is a filter of the sea and so, in effect, feeds 24/7 on germs. You obviously take the more belligerent and illogical approach. Let me explain it simply to you as you may be of low-intelligence: all mussels served to the lady opened (including the one which apparently didn’t taste quite right) and so they were likely alive when cooked and were cooked for long enough to open the shells and cook the mussels. Two others at the table ate the same dish which was prepared in the same pan and using the same batch of mussels as the dish one lady complained about. Nobody got ill (obviously or else that would have been in your review) and so the mussels could not have been “off”. Not possible. Understand now?
Your unfavourable imputation that my staff “seemed to be in a rush to get rid of us” is equally absurd. Our last orders at the bar is at 11pm. I distinctly remember that we even bent the rules for you regarding drinks (I can’t spell it out here!) and then just before midnight gave you all a complimentary Italian liqueur which most of you thanked us for before you left. Actually, as I type this I have realised that you have got to be the most ungrateful person I have ever encountered- oh sorry I can see there are two bad reviews uploaded from your group’s visit commenting on us having the nerve to try and close our restaurant at 11.30pm so that means it is a draw. My Aunt Isabel who does the bar at the weekend and who also comes in at 8am to clean the restaurant for 3 hours every morning 7 days per week) requires to go home at 11.30pm and so the coffee machine was cleaned (anyway, you all had a rounds of soft drinks, wine and teas/coffees well before 11.30pm which was over 2 hours after you had been served your main courses) and the bar closed when she left. Our staff are not slaves. We deserve to go home at a reasonable hour after working a minimum of 10 hours per day. There are a great many bars beside our restaurant who are delighted to serve drinks into the wee small hours on a Friday night so why the great lamentation about a restaurant closing its bar at 11pm (a full hour after it stops serving food) and trying to close at 11.30pm (a half hour after the last drink has been served and plenty of time has therefore been given to allow it to be consumed)?
You will clearly hate discovering the following and so may I gladly advise you that the gentleman (presumably your “boss”) who came up to the bar and paid the bill thanked us for “putting-up” (his words) with some of the members of your group and in particular the one lady who: firstly, complained she “didn’t like” our Gavi (the best Italian white wine we have here and a very, very good one); secondly, couldn’t grasp that our stuffed mushroom starter dish had already been prepared and stuffed using pate and mozzarella cheese prior to service and so she/we weren’t able to simply “pick out the cheese”; and thirdly, made the complaint about the ONE mussel in her seafood spaghetti dish (see above). May I also take pleasure in disclosing to you that he left a large gratuity for our staff- well over and above the 10% “standard”- and stated that he had a “great night” and the food was “excellent”.
On the night, some of you gave-off the strong impression of being pretentious, hollow, well-qualified people with little compassion nor genuine manners and who don’t like being told “no” by mere waiters / restaurant workers (even when it was done very, very politely and when we were 100% correct and they were 100% incorrect). The terms of your review have taken you into an altogether new league. Hopefully, all of my above remarks and setting-out the actual facts of what occurred shall allow for some introspection to take place here by you and your colleague of a similar vindictive mind-set who uploaded a bad review for the same visit and you may now even learn something from this experience. You apparently enjoy trying to damage the reputation of a business unwarrantedly from behind a keyboard and in doing so clearly forget that you are dealing with human beings and are actually damaging the livelihoods of the business owners and those employees and suppliers who contribute to and rely upon the success of the business. You have not had the courage to return my calls to your workplace (medical practice telephone number supplied by the person who booked the table and by the way who requested that you all eat from the £17.95 4 course set value menu) to try and challenge you and your ridiculous denigrations and so this response has the been the only way I am able to correspond with you. I do hope that you read this and take stock of your life and make the necessary adjustments.
Finally, in case I have left any doubt over the position: we do not wish nor need the custom of dishonest, arrogant, deluded and/or ignorant patrons (you have managed to combine all four). Our business currently thrives on the custom of the sociable, pleasant and generous regulars and the masses of courteous appreciative new customers from central Scotland and the foreign tourists whom we actually enjoy serving.

Paolo Martone
Qua Italian Restaurant