Pesto at the Axe And Compass in Rugby

Not the best Pesto I've been to, was quite disappointed. We were greeted to leaves and food on the floor around the entrance and bar, cobwebs and bugs flying around our table (which was surprising in October). The food was ok, but nothing to brag about. Out of 6 dishes the only memorable ones were the fried chicken and garlic mushrooms. The service was just ok. I asked for the gin menu and was handed one for wines. Had to ask 3 times before I got it. Dont think we'll be going back to this Pesto again.

Me and my family always go here, lovely service, staff and food!

Always a pleasure visiting this restaurant for food! Always the best service and always a hard decision deciding what to choose to eat. Perfect for date night or a girlie catch up.

An Italian take on Tapas, and it works very well. Good food, well thought out menu, fast service and great staff

Stunning food, the choice, and quality are amazing. Tapas style food. It's worth every penny. I can see why you need to book.

Check out the brownie if you can find it on your plate

Great meal with friends, love the Axe & Compass, beautiful food, great atmosphere and really pleasant and friendly atmosphere. Lots to chose from, one of the best caprese salads outside of Italy 🇮🇹 meatballs are amazing with that spicy twist! Well worth the short trip from Hinckley or Coventry if your in the area, we travel over from Northampton it’s that good and we don’t have anything like Pesto closer! Love the flavours and six for two is well worth the experience! I always want to order more but we never leave hungry. Plenty of parking and if your stopping in the Hinckley Island it’s £6 in an Uber so you really can enjoy a taste of Italy whilst enjoying the Midlands countryside 🤣

Very delicious food 😋 recommend anyone Can't wait to be back

Good choice of Italian tapas. Dishes update from time to time.

It was our wedding anniversary, service was diabolical and we didn’t get a reasonable table. We had to go to the bar to request for a waiter to come over to our table everty time we wanted to order something. I would never come here again and would not recommend anyone to come to this particular restaurant.

Great for a lunchtime meeting with friends. Unique concept. Tasty food and good value.

Went here for the first time on Tuesday evening & very impressed & will definitely go again. The food was amazing, the staff very helpful & providing a great service. The only thing that let it down was that it was packed at 17:30 & extremely loud; so loud it was difficult to hear yourself, let alone anyone else. I'd go again, but on a quieter day or earlier to avoid the rush

Went today with my wife, have been before, very good service and ambience was warm and inviting. Food was of good standard and quality. Its tapas style so I'd say 70% size of what would be a full meal but that's one of the best bits you can pick and choose whay to try. If one isn't 100% for one person they can share and mix it up with this less waste and more likely to enjoy the meal despite one dish not to full 100(not for us this time we enjoyed all the food provided, but in general I'm saying) Welcoming staff, the waitress and waiters for us today was great as it was last few times we've been in. Fair amount of selection of food and wait times reasonable for such a clean and well look after environment. Would recommend their belly pork, and their breaded lemon Chicken thighs and their Brownie. Good restuarant for the local area very much appreciate the variety change from just burgers , kebab, kfc ranges.

Staff are very welcoming, knowledgeable and attentive. Fabulous menu, good prices and plenty to choose from.Food was absolutely devine.Very clean all round, definitely a place to return to if you want great food,atmosphere,cleanliness and service.

We love Pesto's...everything about the establishment is bang on. The menu is amazing, service is perfect, our order was on the table within 15 minutes...and it's dog friendly which is great for us. Our Llasa - Indiee, loves visiting Pesto's with us, and the staff remember her and make a lovely fuss of her...we will be back over Christmas.

Absolutely fantastic night out. Being tapas it’s great to get quite a few things and share them so you don’t waste a dish if you’re not too keen on it. Food was hot, fresh and tasted amazing. Service was great until we received desert menus and then had to wait 20 mins to order the desert but the place was packed out.

Well I still don't understand the menu quite, but that's been fine for the two visits I've had so far as it just means I get a nice surprise when it arrives. Honestly I do love this place, but so popular you have to book. Definitely a fan.

Excellent service, always happy to advise. the food is excellent, well worth a visit xx

Good value in the week , great service

Always guaranteed a great meal , reasonable prices , No gambles here , a great eatery

Really good tapas Italian with good service and a nice garden area.

Went last night ,very busy place ,service was outstanding, food was ok ,(not my ideal meal Scenario TAPAS) D.F

Great experience, friendly & efficient staff and the food was amazing. Would highly recommend.

celebrated my Birthday here and it was perfect

Great service food and atmosphere. The staff were attentive and very helpful.

The food here is always delicious along with excellent service. We had the tapas which was cooked to perfection.

Great restaurant, delicious food

Fab italian tapas! Portions seem to be getting smaller but overall quality still good. Service is hit and miss

Been eating here twice a month for 6 years .The consistency of the food and service in this place is quite frankly astonishing.Never had a bad meal and never not had exceptional service.

Love this restaurant food is delicious

Well priced, staff where available and help when asking questions about menu.

Great Italian experience with smaller samples of popular dishes at reasonable prices. Good location and ample car parking

Very busy but services was excellent 👌 and food was great

Busy as ever but good to sit outside in the little sunshine we had this year

Absolutely great food super service

Ànd yet another great lunch here at this restaurant with it's delicious food, great value for money & excellent table service from Emily. This is why we return repeatedly & are happy to introduce/recommend to friends & family. Thank you!

Had never heard of this place and loved the whole thing.

This place is lush. The food is amazing and the service is very nice. Too bad that today the waiter got offended by my 2 pounds tip. I struggle to have a decent life and I can afford to go out once per month and I usually go here because I love the food. The waiter telling me to not bother because is nothing was very disappointing. He laught when we left .I usually leave a bit more but not every month this is possible.

My partner & I enjoyed a lovely birthday meal. Made even more special by our Romanian waitress. Highly recommended.

This place has an interesting and different food service idea ... all your favourite Italian dishes, but served Tapas style ... brilliant! The menu is huge and contains all your favourite dishes. On the fixed-price menu you choose 3 dishes for your main meal. If you want a different number, you can choose whatever combination you like from the A La Carte menu. Simples. I went for a 6" pizza, carbonara and chicken/bacon in a creamy garlic/white wine sauce. All were delicious, although a couple of the dishes were not that hot. There's enough food on each plate to enjoy the dish, without getting bored with a whole plate-full. The desert menu again, has some great choices at reasonable prices. This is a very ethical and customer focused business. I politely mentioned that my food was not hot and the Maître D immediately removed them from the bill, no quibble. They also group the dishes you have by price-band so you pay the lowest charge across your table. This is BRILLIANT CUSTOMER SERVICE; I commend them and highly recommend you go enjoy their hospitality.

We had the most amazing meal here! It was a difficult choice choosing from the menu as all the dishes sounded incredible. I was really impressed with how knowledge the staff were, especially as my husband has food allergies. The food was delicious, and we both left feeling full and pleased we had treated ourselves to a nice lunch at Pestos!

The food is excellent and there is a wide variety of dishes. The staff are very polite and friendly. The service is excellent upon arrival, but can be a little slow after you have finished your meal; we had to request for our table to be cleared, for a dessert menu and then for the bill. Overall well worth a visit and we would definitely return.

Very tasty food. Suggest! Try out what's new on the eday card. Superb mood cheap food. Very very tasty menu!

What a wonderful find! We popped in on our journey from the North of England to the South hoping for something small and edible. We discovered a great selection of small plates of fresh food. We had five dishes and all were delicious. We were served by charming cheerful staff who looked after us beautifully from the minute we stepped in the door. We shall return!

A bit too salty and spicy food , not proper Italian Nice portion's size Cozy pub atmosphere

Outstanding Food, Service, Menu and Ambiance. Was served by Lydia who was very polite and helpful throughout our dining experience. Highly rated for Tapas style Italian!!

Don't really understand why so many 5* reviews. We've been twice and both times were not good. Over £9 for a 250ml sauvignon blanc is totally unreasonable. The prawns in batter were not cooked, batter was gooey inside; the meatballs were more spicy than Italian, the chicken skewers were dry. Sound deadening materials would help the "barn like" noisy feel to the restaurant (Tuesday lunchtime!). Not a place to have a good meal and conversation. We won't be back.

Such lovely food value quality and services

Great birthday meal, first time since precovid days that we have been back. Great to see it still amazing staff and service food and atmosphere. Thankyou all for making a greay celebration as it was a double 70th, but so many birthdays were being celebrated tonight.

Great service, bang on food. Will go again. Group meal, festa menu, really well done. Piping hot and very tasty, everyone happy.

Pesto never fails to impress. Fabulous food, lovely staff and great value. Thoroughly recommended.

Excellent food, service, staff were lovely. A lovely afternoon dining in the outside space. Highly recommended.

My wife and I visit every six weeks, and always request a certain table. Today is our 19th Wedding Anniversary and we came for lunch to celebrate. As usual, our favourite table had been reserved. Our usual server, Molly was her usual professional self and nothing was too much trouble. As always, food was superb and no criticism aimed at the kitchen at all. Just short of a ton, but money well spent at an establishment that genuinely delivers a 5* service. Looking forward to our next visit.

Lovely food a great place to go and share the different selections

Food was great, staff seemed short handed as it took quite a while, I had to go and remind them after.30 minutes we had ordered drinks and were still waiting for them.

Great food and wonderful service from food serving staff, bar staff are another story, ordered a pint of cider and it was not full, said nothing about it, went and got another pint and there was even less in it than the first, aske politely for it to be topped up and got such a luck of the barmaid, she proceeded to add literally 2/3 extra drops in the glass, I got such a look off her I couldn’t be bothered to asked again for it to be a full pint, never experienced this before at pesto.

Absolutely amazing food every time as you can see by the empty plates. Even better value when you get the early bird deal!

Pesto is extremely popular and you will be lucky to get a table and while we were there, people were clearly enjoying themselves in the hectic, buzzy atmosphere (Saturday) that's fine - but as a couple, it was difficult to have a conversation. About the food, the only Italian aspect was the names they gave to dishes. The menu is just too big for anything to be properly cooked. We ordered 8 and none was remotely authentic (I have lived and worked in Italy) However, the customers were clearly happy and that's the main thing, I 'spose. Prices are reasonable, it has to be said and I notice a former reviewer mentioned that it made a change from MacDs or KFC. That says quite a bit. It's unfortunate that we expected something which this place definitely is NOT.. ie Italian! Top marks to our waiter Nickolai and other the staff - working flat out but still very attentive.

Very good all round, lovely place to eat, we have been a few times now , There were 4 of us eating.

Great place to eat and chat. Lovely buzzy atmosphere. Food is delicious

Great food , great fast service. Excellent meal. Thank you.

Decent restaurant, worth a visit. Dishes all very tasty, some amazing, some good. Helpful staff, well priced. My only recommendation to get to 5* would probably be to actually reduce the offering slightly and increase focus on the remaining menu. A few dishes were good and could have been great. Overall very enjoyable and will visit again. (been 3 times in 3 years).

I've been to a number of 'Pesto at' locations and they are always the same... amazing! And the Axe and Compass was no different. I was dining alone on a Sunday lunchtime and there was no issue about being getting a table. The service was amazing and the food was delicious!

I recently dined at Pesto and had an overall enjoyable experience. The food was absolutely delicious, and every dish was flavorful and well-prepared. The staff were very friendly and provided excellent service throughout the meal. The prices were reasonable, and the fact that you are enjoying many little portions but enormous ammount of flavours and tastes and amt the end of them all you definitely feel stuffed. The atmosphere was pleasant, making it a good place to relax and enjoy a meal. Waiting time - our food would arrive in around 15 minutes, This was really nice, and the quality of all food i cant stop mentioning how great it was. Overall, I had a great experience at this restaurant and would definitely consider going back again. If you’re looking for a great place to eat, Pesto is worth considering for sure.

This is the best concept, the dishes are all fantastic and being able to try different dishes you never thought you would like is fantastic. Make sure you visit if you ever get the chance

Lovely food, fantastic service

Great good great price, lovely garden when the sun's out.

Dan is an absolute pleasure. Easy to deal with and accommodating to the non ordinary. Thanks Dan!

Busy, but excellent sevice and food, value for money.

Fabulous food & service... highly recommended 👌🏻

Great food as always, service quick and staff are very friendly, food arrives in a quick manner but very well cooked, overall great experience, not my first time here. Come here multiple times a year for special occasions

Food was absolutely amazing. Definitely recommend to anyone looking for a fantastic meal and night out. Staff are very welcoming and friendly

Well worth the visit. Superb in all areas. Best birthday treat ive had so far. Be very hard to beat the lovely place

Very nice food, very good attentive servers. Very good all round experience.

Delicious food. My husband and I chose 4 dishes and were full of them. For children, junior menu price PLN 7.95 including 2 courses, drink and dessert. One big minus is that the table is too small for a family of 4 and there is no privacy. Tables too close together. It's always full of people, special events and it's not pleasant to eat there. Too loud. We would come back more often if it weren't for this.

Lovely service from Alyssa, thanks for looking after us! I’ve never seen anyone carry so many plates. The food was fantastic as always, so much to choose from and everything was wonderful 😄

Really great food. Service was good, just a little slow. But .as that was the only small issue, I've no problem in recommending pesto.

Another wonderful meal had by all of us. Great food, great atmosphere and great service. It was as wonderful as ever. Staff are always as attentive as ever and the food is just delicious. Well done to everyone.

I've visited here on a few occasions now. Lovely place to visit, and excellent food.

Excellent food, very friendly staff. Big shout out to Nickolai, who has been our waiter for our two recent visits. Extremely friendly, knowledgeable about the food and great approach to customer service

As always the food was of top quality and the choices were many and varied, the service was excellent with all of the staff we interacted with being helpful and friendly. Our waitress Molly explained how the menus worked as some of our party had not visited before and she made sure that our dining experience was good. The only negative comment is that the way the tables had been positioned made it difficult for my wife to sit down and leave the table at the end of the meal, a little more space between tables would make this easier. Will definitely visit again.

Great place to have a meal. Friendly staff and great food. Definitely recommend the Tiramisu

Fantastic place food is great 👍

Very nice food, tasty well cooked and presented. There are plenty of drinks options in a relaxed atmosphere.

Amazingly tasty food. The portions are small, but that makes it possible to get more dishes and combine them. I enjoyed the pesto pasta and the arancini the most, but really everything was great.

A little delay before food arrived but it was full, we weren't in a rush and it was worth waiting for. Delicious and recommended to others.

Good Small dishes plenty to choose from good prices and very filling. Worth going to whatever reason to dine out.

Food was ok. A bit bland and expensive for what you get

Piss poor service ! Am I sure that wrong items brought to the table by the staff where not what we ordered! I was so angry i had to rewrite my review!Not happy at all worse pestos I have been in. I look forward to your excuses.

Lovely place, wonderfull food really tasty. Love the way to order some smaller dishes in stead of one big. Can highly recommend

This is one of the most amazing place I’ve ever been. Valuable price, delicious , and absolutely gorgeous atmosphere with great and friendly staff. Definitely worth it to visit and enjoy your time there.

Me and my partners family visited yesterday for his Nans birthday meal and the service was absolutely awful! The waiter who was an older gentleman compared to the other young waiters and waitresses was so rude. Firstly he didn’t clear our old drinks from the table when he brought us new ones over leaving us with hardly any room on the table and with it being tapas you would expect the basic service especially considering that six of us were seated on a round table and there’s loads of dishes to come out. Secondly, one of us had a concern about a dish as the pasta was really burnt and way too spicy - although it states spicy on the menu this dish was inedible due to the amount of chilli flakes and pepper that had been added (we’ve ordered this dish in the past and it’s never looked or tasted like this). We brought this up to the waiter and his reply shocked me if I’m honest. He stated that the menu states it’s spicy and that he had it for his lunch and it was fine. Baring in mind this was said to us in a really rude and confrontational manner. He then proceeded to say that many customers had ordered that dish today and non of them had a problem with it or complained. To me this is irrelevant as it doesn’t matter if no one else has complained but it matters that there is something not right about this specific dish that was served at our table. I thought it was disgusting that he never offered an apology or to re-make the dish. He even could have recommended something different on the menu but he didn’t and his response was plain rude. We ordered a lot of dishes yesterday and there was an issue with just one and there was no resolution made. We didn’t argue this at the time as we really didn’t want confrontation at a birthday meal. Lastly, after we were finished we were seated for a good 25-30minutes before anyone came over to clean our table and the same waiter looked over at our table a few times and continued to ignore us. After a long wait and then all the staff talking at the bar and behind us in a group (ignoring our table) he then instructed a younger waitress to come and deal with it. We still had to be the ones to ask for the bill and this resulted in us having to go up to the bar area and asking the bar staff if we can pay due to how long the waiters and waitresses were making us wait! Just too add, we were never asked if this food was ok or if we needed anything else during our meal and we had to deal with a group of staff talking about our table and constant staring from the bar area when they were talking in their group. The rest of the food was lovely but unfortunately due to the staff members complete ignorance I definitely won’t be returning to this restaurant and the manager needs to address these customer service issues with their staff.

Staff member had no skills of customer interaction and at times seemed out of place being there. Not a great first experience which was a shame as it was recommended to me.

This is a great Italian restaurant. Lovely place to have a tastings menu.

Amazing food and service. Good value for money. highly recommend.

Very good food. Would be better if they had warmers on the table as dishes are getting cold.

The best Italian restaurants in terms of food! I highly recommend it! The menu offers a wide range of delicious options that are sure to please anyone. Each dish we tried was incredibly flavourful and made with fresh ingredients. I would like to express my sincere appreciation for the culinary experience we had. While the service was satisfactory, I acknowledge the challenges that came with a busy restaurant. We booked a table for 8pm, but we had to wait for 30 mins to finally get seated and order some food. The atmosphere, however, was not as relaxing and enjoyable due to the crowded and noisy environment. Personally, I would have preferred a more spacious and peaceful setting with Italian music playing softly in the background. Nonetheless, I am grateful that the bustling nature of the restaurant did not compromise the quality of the food. Therefore, I am offering 5 stars ⭐️ especially for this particular reason.

Went in with my sister as a walk-in on a busy Saturday afternoon. We sat in the bar area, which was quite cosy. Service was good. All of the servers were very friendly. We ordered drinks, which were brought to us after a few minutes. There are two different menus, which confused us at first. One menu has set prices if you pick three things from a particular set. The other menu had more choice with individually priced dishes. I like a good choice and varied menu, but this was a little more complicated than I'm used to! The waitress explained how it worked. I like the idea of having smaller dishes to try. We chose three dishes each. I liked one (a mushroom dish - lots of mushrooms). I tried seitan and lentil balls, which were OK. My third dish was prawns and scallops (I forget the name of the dish, but I think it was something like frutti de mer). I wasn't too keen on that. I did like being able to try different things. For dessert, I had a pannacotta. That was lovely. I also had a hot chocolate, which was also lovely. The toilets are clean and well-stocked. Accessibility is good. It is spacious and comfortable with outdoor seating that overlooks countryside. There is a large car park with good sized spaces. Prices are OK. It was around £50 for 2 soft drinks, 6 tapas dishes, 2 desserts, and 2 hot chocolates.

Great tapas choice in lovely surroundings and friendly service

Really great restaurant, tasty food and very friendly staff. We all had a really good evening here