Umberto's, Norwich

I had my 35th birthday meal here (a Saturday evening), based on a previous visit a month or so earlier, where the food was tasty and the young Italian waitress was extremely polite, friendly and helpful.

However, on my birthday, it was a completely different story. They must have a different chef at the weekend, because our food, this time, was bland, luke warm and only contained 15% of the meat content that a standard meal usually has??

Also, the wine (although expensive) tasted cheap, like cooking wine!

We had to wait an HOUR for our food and several surrounding tables were presented with the wrong meals, that no-one had ordered.

Finally, the young Italian waitress that had made us feel so welcome weeks earlier, unfortunately didn't get assigned to our table and instead we received appalling service from a very grumpy older English woman, who seemed to run the place. The grumpy waitress/manager(?) was rude, head-mistress'y, short-tempered and completely humiliated the nice Italian waitress more than once, by 'telling her off' in front of customers!?! The whole experience was very uncomfortable and shocking.

Such a shame, as the previous owners of Umberto's were very professional, friendly and the food used to be excellent.

The high expectations we expected from this restaurant was sadly not met, whilst the food was very good, and as the menu states '' the chef is an artist'' the service was very slow and the was little to no ambiance. The decor was homely however the glass tables made you feel on edge, and the fine dining cutlery was not necessary. The waitress was pleasent however it was quite enfuriating having to wait a long time for the bill whilst she had a conversation in Italian with some other patrons. All in all I would only recommend going back at a time where there is no one else in the restaurant otherwise you will have to wait a long time.

We found Umberto's, which I would still call a "gem", about three months ago. We only visit at lunchtime when the reataurant is quieter, so the still considerable wait for our usually quite delicious food is tolerable - just. I have often wondered how they cope in the busy evenings as Umberto is only assisted then by one other chef in a tiny kitchen as I understand it. The house wine is pretty dire and the wine list seems to us very pricey for a small restaurant - so we limit ourselves to one glass of the house wine each rather than splashing out on a bottle of Frascati for example, which we would prefer. Rather a short sighted policy methinks. Service is slapdash and not very effectively carried out. I suspect, however, that the speed of the waitress is governed by the (slow) speed of the kitchen and deliberately so I suspect. One can understand that a wait for freshly cooked, good quality food is necessary but this makes the service side of things even more important. Indeed it could offer the canny proprietor opportunities to increase his sales pattern during the wait, if inteligently managed - rather than wasting valuable time arguing about tap water or summat!. The customer does not appear to be King here and i suspect that this stems, for some reason, from the top. A great pity because the standard of cooking is, in our experience, authentic and very tasty.

I cannot understand the previous comments left, the food and service are excellent, the prices very competitive. Where else can you get food cooked to order, chop and change different pasta with different sauces all cooked to perfection. I am NEVER dissapointed and can taste the food even before I eat it, and as for the tap water this is simply not true, Umberto's served tap water to us when asked, but anyone that has ever been to Italy knows that the Italians always have a bottle of water on the table. And lastly IT IS AUTHENTIC ITALIAN!!!! nor pre-packed, pre-prepared and run by a 100% Italian not an Albanian, Turk or any other outsider claiming to be Italian. Oh and it's not a chain....

We eat here pretty much every weekend - sometimes even twice a weekend, and have been doing so for well over a year. Neither we nor any of our friends have ever been disappointed with the service or the food, and always come away full and satisfied. I usually have a pasta dish and/or a pizza and both are always beautiful.

My only small suggestion would be to soften the atmosphere slightly - a few more candles etc.

Otherwise, a great restaurant, great food. Hopefully like this forever!

My partner is Italian and we often choose to eat out in Italian restaurants so he can feel more at home. One night we decided to try Umberto's as the menu looked quite promising.

We were greeted by a rather unpleasant smell of some sort of a disinfectant but we chose to ignore it - perhaps we shouldn't have. Or perhaps they should have used more of it in the toilets which were rather smelly.

The food turned out to be pretty average (not the promised "slice of Italy") and the portions were really small but when we wanted to order another dish, we were told that we would have to wait for at least half an hour longer cause the kitchen was too busy.

All in all, the food and the service are definitely not worth the price (£13 for a dozen small calamari rings and a couple of prawns?) so we definitely won't go back there again, even if all the other Italian restaurants in the neighbourhood are fully booked.

We have just had an evening at Umbertos Norwich and were totally disappointed. We ordered starters of Garlic bread with cheese and there was no sign of any cheese. We queried this and were told there was a sprinkling of parmesan cheese on the bread, sorry but I hate parmesan cheese and can smeel it a mile away - there was no cheese on the garlic bread. Main courses. to be fair the lasagne was good but very small portions for the price. 1 member of the party had spagetti tubes with no sauce and very little bacon/ham and a few small pieces of tomato - very disappointing.

Totally disappointed with the food and the service. Will certainly not be going back any time soon. We were celebrating a 65th birthday but there was certainly nothing to make this a memorable evening.

Use are so short of good restaurants in Norfolk. I have always believed the public get the restaurents they deserve. You will have to wait at Umbertos as you meal will be freshly cooked, delicious and very genuinely Italian (not just Italian style),. Unfortunately most reviews in the Norfolk area say more about the reviewer than the restaurant! Most Norfolk people want a plate of rubbish piled high, for as little as possible and in 5 minutes flat. So that's what they get most of the time.

On special occasions and when we fancy good quality Italian food my only choice in Norwich is Umberto's.

Good quality food is hard to come by in Norwich as most of the locals seem to judge a good restaurant by the quantity and not the quality of their meal.

For the discerning lover of good food this restaurant is my first choice.

Umberto regularly travels to Italy and returns with delicacies not available in this country also, he prepares the ingredients personally and sun-dry's he's own tomatoes!

The table wine is of a higher quality than most found in restaurants and the lack of tap water is not an issue for me.

I cannot understand the previous reviews maybe they were looking for the 'stack it high' service.

My wife and I always pay regular visits during the crab and mussel season as Umberto prepares these local delicacies to perfection.

We have always been treated very well the staff I find friendly and have never had any cause for complaint.

I usually love Italian food but Umbertos was totally disappointing, the starter tasted weird and the main course was bland. The service was really bad and one of the waitresses was really rude and unhelpful, it certainly wasn't service with a smile. I wasn't impressed and won't be going again.