DAVID WILES doesn't appreciate the music or the chairs at York's newest Italian restaurant.
Attentive waiting-on staff are an integral part of an enjoyable dining experience. No matter how good the food, how pleasant the atmosphere or how interesting your dining partner, if the waiters or waitresses are not there when you need them, it spoils the event.
But, like so many things in life, you can go too far and be too keen.
Our first impressions on entering Toto's, an Italian restaurant and pizzeria in York's Fawcett Street, boded well for the meal. There was a mixed clientele, a wonderful smell filled the air and we were greeted with a smile.
But, almost from the moment we were handed our menus, we were subjected to a seemingly never-ending procession of staff asking if we were ready to order.
There were three or maybe four waitresses who came up to us in turn at one-minute intervals - a total of around a dozens visits to our table which meant that, no, we weren't ready to order because every time we tried to look at the menu, there was another waitress.
One of the young ladies explained that the mix up was because they were all new, which is fair enough, but it set the scene for what was not the best eating experience of the year.
Firstly, the setting.
My partner's chair - which, like the rest of them, was uncomfortable and looked as if it had been bought from a second hand furniture shop - was on the verge of falling apart and had to be swapped with one from another table.
A couple of Italian wine bottles and maps of the Old Country had been scattered over the walls in a vain attempt to give the place, formerly a steak restaurant, a Mediterranean feel.
And then there was the music. It must have been Best Boy Band Love Ballads in the World... Ever, Volume 3, which is a wonderful choice if you are a 12-year-old girl, but there weren't any of them to be seen in the restaurant that night.
Trying to be positive, we ordered our food and settled back.
The starters were fantastic.
I had the coppa reale (£4.25) - basically a glorified prawn cocktail with salmon and crab, although I could have sworn it had mackerel in it.
But none the less, it disappeared in moments.
My partner Karin went for deep fried mozzarella with tomato and garlic (£4.25) which she rated highly.
The wine, a medium dry white verdecchio at £9.95, washed it down splendidly.
We then had to endure a more than 20 minute wait for the main course.
Not necessarily a bad thing if you like a bit of digesting time between courses, but 20 minutes was pushing it a bit.
But then came far and away the biggest cock-up of the evening which really ruined things.
We were asked to move tables, mid-meal, which I would say was a major no-no for a restaurant.
The manager was very nice about it, apologised profusely and explained that a party of nine they were not expecting had just shown up.
We were moved to a very bright corner table and the upheaval blew away the atmosphere created by a small, intimate table for two and the best part of a bottle of wine.
Feeling not as comfortable as we had been, the food finally arrived and again we felt a bit let down.
Karin's tagliatelle al salmone disappointed. The pieces of pasta were very short - hard to twirl round your fork - and she thought it greasy and too creamy, with little taste to it.
My vegetarian pizza (£5.75) came in the authentic Italian style - uncut - and was, well, just what you would expect from a vegetarian pizza.
Writing this a few days after the event, nothing sticks in the mind about it. Just pizza, really.
By this time we were straining at the leash to get away, but a lemon sorbet was ordered partly as the palette cleanser it was designed for, but also in an effort to give myself something more positive to write about.
And indeed it was delicious.
Toto's has only been open for a few months, and I'm sure that a lot of the things that went wrong were mere teething problems. We'll give them a few more months to sort them out, then we might be back. But if they move us again, there will be hell to pay.
Toto's, Fawcett Street, York.
Telephone 01904 466528.
fact file
Food: hit and miss
Service: too keen
Value: OK
Ambience: friendly
Disabled access: No
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