Piccolo Santa Monica

We were ushered over to a nice quiet spot by a very lovely waiter. He was patient, easy to understand and always ready to be helpful to us. We were with our son and his wife so we talked and heard constantly while eating and drinking wonderful stuff!! Thank you Piccolo!! Linda

Absolutely love the food at Piccolo. Unfortunately, the service was painfully slow, and it was half empty at 730 on a saturday evening, which concerns me. The service was not, take your time no rush pace. It was I had to get up and get parmesan at the station myself, because there was no one around for so long. I wanted a second cocktail, or glass of wine, but decided to forget it, it just took too long. It was not that it was busy, because it was not. there only seemed to be a couple of waiters, and a runner working, but this is not good for the customer. Food is outstanding as usual.

We have been here many times and we always enjoyed the food. Tonight, dinner was a disaster!!!! Drinks took ages to get. Then getting the waiter over to take our order took forever. After another small eternity, 7 of the 8 of us were served our dinner plates and the 8th meal had still not arrived when the other 7 were done eating. We asked to speak to a manager but we were told there was no manager. The employees called the owner who said she didn't need a manager on staff because she trusts her employees wholeheartedly. Meanwhile, we ordered a nice bottle of Italian wine which we were told had “cork issues”and was being “handled” in the back. After a very long time, the waiter came out with a glass decanter filled with a red wine and a partially crumbled cork on a corkscrew. I was bothered by the fact that we never saw the actual bottle. I can't ever remember another time where the bottle was not presented to us, opened AT the table and poured into a decanter in front of us. The bill had an extra item on it that we hadn't ordered and an automatic 3% charge on the total bill for employee benefits- which we asked to be removed. The only accommodation we got was no charge for the chicken that almost never came and a removal of the “automatic” 20% gratuity put on bills for groups of 6 or more. Since we determined that this was all really the fault of bad (or nonexistent) management, we added a gratuity back in. Whoever owns or runs this place needs to get this location better organized and trained. You are working on running a good restaurant into the ground.

I used to love this place. I hadn't been there in a while though and will not be going back. The food is really good no complaints on that end. However, the whole experience was weird. It was a Sat night and we had 6:30 reservations. It was not busy not at 6:30 nor at 8:30 when we left. However, the food took forever to come out. Both first and main courses. We didn't have dessert as who know how long that would take. I feel the place is badly managed at this point.

It is a shame as I was hoping it would become my new local Italian. Service was lacking and we ended up being served by three different people none of which followed up. Had to ask for menues. My meal was cold by the time we got the parmesan topping. Waitress couldn't reach the table to actually deliver our meals when they arrived.then disappeared. Asked for a spoon and when it finally came, it was a serving spoon. Couldn't tell who was the bartender, waiter, or not sure really. Place needs a manager.Big let down.