Il Grasso - HOUNSLOW

My co worker and I settled on Il Grasso for our final lunch of the 2018 calendar year. Whilst I 'm never overly keen on hotel restaurants, Il Grasso, within the St Giles Hotel, has been a favourite of ours for a number of years. We 've only ever eaten at lunch times so can 't vouch for meals served at any other time of the day. The restaurant is a real oasis of peace and quiet and, as we were the only diners there, clearly a well kept secret in this busy town. The decor and restaurant furnishings have recently undergone a complete makeover, increasing the restaurant 's capacity in light of the hotel extension that opened a year or so ago. I imagine that St Giles Hotel is a modestly priced stop over for tourist groups who commute into Waterloo in 30 minutes from the nearby Feltham Rail Station or who are en route to Heathrow via the nearby bus service. To lunch! My starter of smoked salmon, plain and simple with a squeeze of lemon juice, was delicious. My co diner 's 'default ' spaghetti carbonara was 'absolutely delicious ' as was my 'usual ' piping hot beef lasagne. No desserts main portions are more than satisfying! one beer and one glass of the house red produced a bill of £36. Service is welcoming, discreet and attentive. Yet another successful visit to Il Grasso! See you in 2019!

I stayed for 3 nights at the St Giles last week, so decided to eat in Il Grasso to avoid having to go out. The First night I ordered room service, and settled on the Chicken Lasagne which sounded good, and some garlic bread. The garlic bread was like cardboard and stone cold, and the lasagne was a sloppy mushy mess that tasted vile. I thought I'd give it another go on the second night and ordered the Pollo Milano. The chicken was pleasant and well cooked, but the sauce was resembled a rich gravy, the vegetables were boring and undercooked and the potatoes were pretty much raw. On the flip side, I wasn't planning on eating there on the last night, however got dragged into the restaurant by my colleague who'd arrived that day. The service was fantastic and very attentive. I had the Steak with mushroom sauce and it was very good, cooked as ordered and the sauce was delicious. So 1 good meal out of 3...

Menu isn't extensive the food is only average. Staff are attentive but the large hall doesn't create any kind of vibe.

We have travelled extensively through Italy and I have also worked there for 3 years in Milan. I know what good Italian food is. I have also done many TripAdviser reviews, and you can see I am fair and balanced and have nothing against this particular restaurant ......... We were staying at the hotel, and had checked out the very professional and upmarket website that Il Grasso has. It talked about a 'seasonal menu ' and 'freshly made Italian foos ' using the finest fresh ingredients, so we were quite looking forward to it. When we arrived, the staff were excellent. Each and every one gave us a cheery hello and were very welcoming and friendly. I should have thought something was wrong when I noticed that the restaurant looked nothing at all like the photos on the website. It 's definitely the same place, but somebody did a very good job on the photography .... because the actual place looked like a prison canteen. To be fair, it was New Years Day so maybe they had a big function on the previous night and hadn 't put everything back in place etc I asked the Maitre D if the pizzas were thick crust, and he told me 'no, they are thin crust and proper Italian pizza '. Excellent I thought. We both ordered a pizza, and got a bit suspicious when we could see the chef in the pass receiving what looked like a pre-made pizza and then just banging it into a standard oven (no proper pizza oven). It was quite hard to hear anything because of the death metal that was playing super loudly in his kitchen area. Our food arrived and I can quite honestly say they were the second worst pizzas I have ever had in my entire life (beaten only by a rural kebab house in Somerset) The base was thick, soggy and cold in the middle and had been clearly frozen. The mozzarella was salty and very cheap poor quality. Even the onions on it weren 't fresh, they were the prepared ones that come in big jars from Brake Brothers. The tomato paste had been bought in. My wife, who was starving, was physically unable to eat hers. That is seriously unusual! Nobody asked us what our meal was like so we had to call our waiter over. He admitted to us that bases were bought in ... what Italian restaurant whose website talks about 'seasonal menus ' and 'fresh food ' BUYS IN PIZZA BASES AND EVEN THE TOPPINGS? He took the pizza away and didn 't charge us for them. While we were there we noticed that all the customers were airport travellers who are only there for one night, so I guess the restaurant can just feed them cheap **** and never have to worry about returning trade. The pasta dishes coming out to them looked like overlooked slop, and many meals were being sent back. The staff didn 't seem surprised so maybe this is a common occurrence. Absolutely terrible food, do not eat here. It really was among the worst meals we have ever had the misfortune of being served. Who on earth are the reviewers giving high marks for this place. Very suspicious.

This was the worst ever spaghetti carbonara in the world ever. A bowl of very al dente spaghetti, drowned in oil with some overcooked bacon that a whole bowl of parmesan could not save. This is a dreadful place to eat. We went as a family of 12, we ordered starters, garlic bread was ok, the pate looked like a slice of cat food and was immediately sent back. Oddly enough there was no protest from the staff, indicating perhaps that this is a regular occurrence. None of us really ate the food, the bread was good, so we ate that instead. I believe that they were more focussed on the set meal for the coach tours that were arriving, it looked like it might have been ok. I felt sorry for the staff as they had to clear away partially eaten food, it was really that bad. I was terribly disappointed as I had read reviews saying the carbonarra was good, well I can assure you, firstly they had no clue how to make it and secondly it was not. Sad, as potentially there is an Italian restaurant on the doorstep, but we will not be going back.