i visited as part of a group booking for a christmas party. we paid $35. we arrived at 12.30pm.
one hour later, we received garlic bread and a garlic pizza. just one slice each. there were some salads with iceberg lettuce and coles type brand salad dressing.
two hours later, we received 3 x semi-cold pastas but all lumped together onto steel platters. protein / meat, you ask? no. nothing. pesto, tomato and a cream sauce, the cream sauce with nothing in it. but it gets better! i tasted the tomato pasta first: surely any italian kitchen can do a good napolitana sauce? the tomato sauce, i kid you not, was identical to heinz spaghetti-in-tomato-sauce tins (the ones you used to eat while camping when you were 10 years old). i took one mouthful and almost spat it out. the people around me left everything uneaten.
it was so embarrassing, even the waiter was embarrassed. 10 mins later he furtively retrieved the half empty platters (ie the rest was untouched on our plates), and i said to him 'please take it away, we don't want it!'. he answered: 'yes, don't worry, we will have real pizza for you, very soon, real pizza, don't worry'. he was beet red with embarrassment.
i did not arrange the booking. if i had done, i would have promptly gone to the manager and told him the food was abysmal and that he was about to face a large horde of angry, hungry, vengeful people who would either demand real food, or a full refund, post haste.
another hour later (ie 3.30pm, we had arrived at 12.30pm remember), i mean three hours after lunch, this is so unbelievable i almost can't believe this even as i type the words, yet this is what really happened -- we did get the pizzas, but by then it was no lunger lunch, though i admit the pizzas were quite good. the same quality you would expect from any busy local pizzeria.
bar the pizzas (but i don't count this, they were so late), all in all this was absolutely the worst dining experience i have ever had: it was a complete unbridled disgrace.
it was as if the kitchen and owner decided to humiliate us by giving us literally garbage quality food because we had the temerity to book a large table and pre pay ... but $35, doesn't that get you anything anymore? there were 20 of us. he made over $700 from us. the ingredients must have cost less than $40, and i don't mean per head, i mean the net cost of the cheapest ingredients i have ever seen in my life. frankly, i think i would rather be robbed at knifepoint. did i mention as well how noisy it was? the lack of personal service? and how hot it was? and that i sat in these torturous conditions for three bloody hours?
never pre pay! always order a la carte! and maybe forget bar reggio! there are a billion pizza joints around. if this kitchen can dish this up, and then actually serve it, and do so replete with embarrassment and yet continue to do so unabashedly and without apology, it deserves not to be in business. how do they get away with this?
i am sure a la carte it is an okay place. just do not book a function or a large table. you are going to be robbed.