Little Italy – Maggots in Tomato Ketchup served

An Open Letter to the CMD & CEO of Little Italy brand of restaurants in India – Mr Raj Mehta and Mr. Naveen Shetty respectively.

This is with regards to the totally unprofessional and pathetic attitude from the management of Little Italy based at Ghatkopar(E), Mumbai besides the mental agony faced by our group of cousins who had gone for dinner on the auspicious occasion of Rakshabandhan on 29-08-2015.

We had booked the table for 12 people and at around 20:00 p.m. all of us had ordered for the starters.
The starters included Nachoes with cheese sauce, Bruschetta, Garlic bread cheese, Cheese Fondue, Jalapeno Poppers & Ai 4 Formaggi.

As the Jalapeno Poppers came, my cousin sister took some tomato ketchup which was kept inside a white ceramic container. She consumed a bit and passed it to my other cousins. One of my cousins checked the tomato ketchup closely and found slimy moving maggots in huge numbers inside!!
She immediately called up the concerned person from the restaurant and posted a complaint to him that the Manager should be summoned. The person took the container with him inside the kitchen.

As this topic started trickling down to the end where I was sitting, we were agitated at this pathetic manner in which food meant for consumption was kept! And one of my cousins had actually consumed the ketchup unknowingly. On top of this the person who had taken the container inside did not turn up nor did the Manager come once to look into the matter. This boiled down and I decided to get into the depth of such unprofessional behavior towards customers.

The manager was summoned and I demanded action on the way a restaurant such as Little Italy who charges exorbitantly for their so called World Class Italian Cuisine! I demanded I want to see the kitchen and he took me towards the kitchen. As the kitchen door opened to my utter disbelief the white ceramic container was just kept unattended besides two Kissan tomato ketchup bottles. The management had not even considered it a point to check why we had launched a complaint and what was inside the tomato ketchup actually!!

I took the container in my hands and showed the Manager the alive moving maggots inside the kitchen. All he told me was ” Sir, this won’t happen the next time!” I lost it and demanded immediate details of the owners or actual authorities running this chain of restaurants. The lame excuses and unprofessional behavior from the Manager was totally pathetic.

At this point to my surprise, two couples who had food at another table came up to the Manager to point out that they have been waiting 20 minutes for their bill and that outside people are already waiting for their chance to come inside! The Manager immediately gave them a bill which was totally wrong and had at least 4 items added which they hadn’t consumed at all! The customers had to literally guide the Manager on what all they had and wanted to leave the restaurant as soon as possible.

Me and few of my cousins decided to alert the other customers who were eating, had just entered and who were waiting outside by showing them the container with the maggots moving inside the tomato ketchup. We were totally taken aback when the same Manager was seen laughing on our this act and felt miserable on having to go through this harrowing experience on the auspicious day of Raksha Bandhan. We forcibly took the bill to further strengthen our point with the Manager trying to convince us by saying “Sir, we won’t give the bill. The food is free!”

We demand action by the CMD & CEO on the management of this branch of Little Italy and also want to warn the people who will be thinking of visiting this branch to NEVER go unless some action has been taken.

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