Carluccios

Way overpriced for below average food and relatively slow service. Good for coffee/​tea only.

Great for a quick plate of very good pasta and a glass of wine before the cinema. Nice atmosphere, very buzzy on a Friday night, with quick service. As previously said, slightly more expensive than it should be, but definately better than other chains — has surely overtaken Pizza Express in the Italian fast food stakes.

You’ll get a reasonable mid ranged meal for slightly more than it should cost. Having been there about 15 – 20 times I can only recount one bad experience (poor service)! So that’s not bad really is it.

There is always a bit of a running theme to my thoughts on restaurants that started off small, then expanded into chains. I usually find that the bigger they get, the smaller the portions get, the quality suffers, and the whole experience becomes more expensive. Now, I still love Carluccios, but I extend the above sentiments to them.
I took a friend to the Esher branch a couple of Saturday nights ago, and was quite surprised to see that it looked less like a humble café, and more like a restaurant — it had white table clothes on the tables and candles burning! We sat down and the waitress gave us a one page sheet of a ‘dinner menu’ — which was quite different to the usual 3 sided menu that we all know. I was thinking that I had made a mistake in coming here if this is what they serve on a Saturday night — the meals were all much more expensive. I asked what they had done with the other menu, and she said ‘oh, it’s still here, you can have it if you like’. Cheeky Carluccios!
They tried this on with me the other day, so be aware of this — this is obviously a way to get everyone to spend more money.

You know what you’ll get here, formulaic but it works, regularly use this, less so now there is one in Walton, Esher has a slighty better feel. Good value pasta, rissotto, and my favourite Gnocchi, sauces usually better than other italian chains, but Ask’s are good too. Good for breakfast and coffee as well.