The best restaurants serving Italian food in Boothen and Oak Hill Stoke-on-Trent West Midlands

The restaurant was cold, the fire was ineffective and on one of the coldest days of the year the radiators were off and very cold to the touch indicating they had not been on at all during the day . We moved our table closer to the fire but I had to keep my coat on as I ate. I have never had to do that in a restaurant. Despite us being the only customers there, we were placed in the large main dining room, not the snug, which had its own log burner and would have been warmer. The waiter became defensive when we complained despite our comments being about the restaurant, not about him. He admitted he was also cold and as an explanation offered up that it was ‘particularly cold today’. Surely a reason to have the heating on not off. He also bizarrely stated that the place was warmer when there were ‘more people in’ .When we were the only two people there the comment seemed a bit irrelevant. Sadly the restaurant looked run down with peeling paint and damp. None of this would have particularly mattered if the place had been warm. I wondered why they bothered opening on a Thursday lunchtime if we were the only customers. If they can’t afford day time heating then it’s probably time for a rethink.The prices on the menu were lower than what we were charged. They mixed up the fixed menu prices with the a la Carte prices. Even when I raised the issue and said we should be paying for 2 Fixed menu prices of £24, they charged us £49.90. We had the set menu and I was asked what sauce I wanted with my steak. I was amazed to be charged extra for it on the bill as I assumed it was included in the set dish. I was not told it was an extra which I find misleading. We ordered a glass of wine, the waiter didn’t ask whether we wanted large or small so I assumed it was a standard glass so it was annoying to find we had been charged for a large glass when we hadn’t asked for it. I would normally expect the serving staff to ask large or small if there is actually a choice not just to make that choice for the diner. The more cynical may wonder if this is a ploy to make more money out of customers? Watch out for this as the waiter did not make it clear that we were purchasing extras with the food or that the practice appears to be to automatically supply large glasses of wine if you don’t specify otherwise. In summary the food was ok but I couldn’t recommend this place unless you were booking in the middle of a heat wave.