Sole d'Italia — Restaurant in Brussels

We've been to this place to have a dinner in a christmas week night, since my wife felt like eating pasta.

The restaurant looks cozy, it's small, decorated with classic cantina stuff and low-light. The tables are relatively too close from each other, although we discovered there was another floor full of tables (they're empty, not sure if they were available though). There are handy wall hangers for hanging coats.

The waiter guided us to a 2p table, as soon as we arrived. I ordered a lasagna and my wife, a plate of spaghetti. To drink, a glass of juice and a glass of kriek (the "cherry beer"). I also ordered a parmesan fondue, but the waiter thought we were ordering grated cheese and since we only realized that when the main dishes arrived, there were no use asking for the starters anymore.

The waiter, as a matter of fact, had very low energy, which I can't blame him, since it's not easy working during the holidays week. The meal was good, my wife liked hers a lot, about my lasagna: I found a little bit strange having mushrooms on it (also, it doesn't say anywhere in the menu) but overall was quite tasty.

So why the single star? Well, the table where the waiter had us seated was right beside an elderly couple, who seemed to be just like any other friendly couple enjoying an italian dinner. This lasted few minutes though. When me and my wife started talking in our native language (Portuguese), the lady freaked out and started to curse us to his husband, in french. Maybe she thought we didn't know her language, or she simply didn't care (which I think it was the case, becase she looked me in the eyes while ranting). Luckily (for this situation), imy wife does not speak french so she enjoyed every single bit of the night, but since I know the language I had to put up with a strange calling us names for speaking something alien to her. I've only seen this stuff happening in movies, never thought it would happen to us.

And what's the restaurant role in all of this? I take she's a regular in the place, since she talked a lot (about amenities) to the waiters, who, as a matter of fact, witnessed what was happening but didn't do anything about it. I even felt like the manager (or the boss, idk, a younger employee, who wore a different outfit from the rest) wanted us out as soon as possible (rushing us to pay the bill).

I should've read all the previous comments about racism and xenophobia here, maybe it could've saved us from this terrible experience. This review, by the way, is totally directed to future customers, since the owners (or whoever answers here in the name of the restaurant) clearly don't know how to take criticism. Instead, they keep thinking they run a perfect place where room for improvement...

The interior looks nice. The staff is friendly. I was with a group of 3 friends- S Some of us ordered a soup which was really tasty. So were the drinks. That's about all of the strong points of this place. Small mistakes when ordering were made but I dont't really mind that, that's not a problem. The food, however, was just mediocre. Not terrible,not good,just mediocre. We got a couple of pieces of bread and butter as an appetizer- butter was definetely a stronger part of that pair, the bread was a bit stale. The pasta sauce looked and tasted like it came from a jar. Absolutely no taste, you could just get pure pasta without sauce and you wouldn't really notice the difference. The pizza was ok, nothing more than that.

Luckily the prices were not high, so there's less regret on our side. I dont' understand why this place has a 4.1 average on...

Location and interior; nice Food; horrible. Could've probably done better myself. Pasta felt straight from Aldi package and microwaved. Meat was undercooked and tasteless. Even the bland salad had more taste and it didn't even contain any vegetables whatsoever. Fries served without sauce. Had to ask. Had to drink cola without ice from a wine glass which I didn't expect. Staff; somewhat friendly, but make no effort to improve your experience. Their enthusiasm was contagious, in the negative sense. Not extremely rude, but not what I expected from Italians. My attempts to be friendly were to no avail and waiter seemed eager to let me pay and leave.

Came to an Italian place specifically to enjoy the Italian hospitality and cuisine. Both were absent/under par. Would...