Was in San Carlo, Liverpool May 11th. Was warmly greeted at the door by hostess. We were early so we were given the option of a drink at the table or at the bar. We were sat down 9pm as per our reservation. The staff were friendly and the service was second to none, I'm not a celeb so don't understand some of the comments on here. The food was equally as good, I had the veal, so well seasoned. For dessert decided on the baked Alaska which was flambeed at the table , very impressive. Will be visiting again real soon

Food is amazing. We go as often as we can and we have never been disappointed with the food.
The staff are warm and welcoming. The restaurant is immaculate.
The only negative I could possibly give is that the toilets are downstairs and the floor is quite slippy in high heels.

Well.

It was Sunday night of the May bank holiday. Myself and my wife were celebrating our 1 year anniversary. I phoned ahead for an 8:30pm reservation at the start of the week and was only given a 9pm reservation due to the restaurant being full. Understandable being a bank holiday weekend. We were fine with this.

We got there bang on 9pm and boy was it busy. We went to the lady on the front desk to tell her we were here for our reservation under our name. She didn't even look at her reservation sheets and snottily told us to go and get a drink. This immediately made me suspicious. As we approached the bar a waiter PUSHED me out of the way and said "can you move" literally unbalancing me. So we got a bottle of wine (£22 for house Rose) and went to go and stand at the bar and wait. Apparently we weren't standing at the right place so a waiter kindly ushered us away and found us a couple of seats in the bar area. Nice touch, i'll give them that.

So 15 minutes had passed - no sign of our table. I asked the snotty lady at the front how long our table will be. Her reply (without even looking at the sheets), "We're busy, i dont know. Perhaps 5 minutes"

So it got to 9:30 - still no sign of our table. At this point other people were also kicking off and we were getting agitated. So i demanded to speak to the manager. He came over and was very apologetic stating "we are very busy. Some people that had reservations before you were late". He didn't even know who we were as we weren't referenced against our reservation once! He then stated "a table is just paying their bill now, we will get to you in 2 minutes." It got to 9:40 - 40 minutes later and we just walked out. We told the girl on the front desk we were leaving as we waited 40 minutes for a reservation that we phoned ahead for. She just shrugged her shoulders and started talking to someone else.

The thing about this place is that it will always be busy because of the clientèle it attracts. So they've not got to worry about customer service because it will always be busy. But I have never ever experienced such poor customer service in my life. It is ran so badly with lack of communication. We were not even offered anything. They were not bothered that we left. Others were getting irate too, but they dont care.

So instead we left and went to Piccolinio's around the corner where we had a brilliant meal and night out.

The food was excellent, except at 5am when you realise quite how much salt is on everything.
When ordering your food it would be good for the waiter to give you his undivided attention rather than barking orders at a colleague- had to repeat everything twice. Still waiting for the dessert wine.

The staff were quick and attentive and we ordered with no bother.
The food was superb - I got the lamb from the specials menu and it was beautiful - really filling.
Overall the menu was a little overpriced but there was a lot of choice.

One particularly enjoyable detail throughout our evening was when my boyfriend ordered a baked Alaska for dessert. The waiter served it to him and as he brought the dish to our table, he flambèd it in front of us - it was a great added detail to end our meal and experience at San Carlo.

If I had to make negative remark, it would be that the table we were seated at was very cramped.... Staff were constantly shoving past you which was a little frustrating at times.
I would return to this restaurant again, we all had a great time!