Groppo — Restaurant in Grad Zadar

Back from amazing trip through Croatia, where we experienced great fresh fish meals and savory breads. Unfortunately, our meal at Groppo stands out as our most distasteful--pun intended. Perhaps the waiter and chef thought we'd be seduced by the great view of the historic architecture across the street. The tuna steak was overly salted, the swiss chard was mercifully bland to help suppress the saltiness of the tuna, and the seafood pasta was offensively devoid of seafood while the pasta itself looked like a combined blend of leftovers from previous dish preparations. We asked to see the chef, who when shown the untouched pasta meal, had no interest in actually considering the possibility that the dish was unacceptable--only arguing that we just didn't like it. Honestly, how can you not like pasta, and we were so hungry we ultimately just ate the tuna making it palatable by masking the salt with the bland Swiss chard. On top of that we were excited to try the proudly advertised "homemade bread" basket--the presentation is cute--in a kind of hat--but dismayed that it was stale and looked like regular store bought bread. You gotta wonder how a fine restaurant in a seaside town could so egregiously present a seafood pasta dish where you can't find the seafood. Something someone...

We visited this restaurant after it was highly recommended both by online reviews and in a British newspaper, but it delivered far from the hype. The location inside old town Zadar, with an old courtyard feel was nice, as was the live guitar player and the service from staff. However the food was just disappointing right from my Aperol spritz which did not taste as good as one I had on my beach, to the John Dory fish with gnocchi which I actually struggled to eat as it tasted so bland - and I’m usually one to eat anything. We ordered the cheese and meats platter to start... it was good but not as good as it’s €20 price tag and we had so much left that we asked to take it home.. I’d prefer just to pay less. My boyfriend had the seabass which we saw for 1/14th of the price in the supermarket...granted you’re paying for restaurant service but I think we could have cooked it better in our holiday rental apartment ourselves. I even left this restaurant without looking at the desert menu as I was so disappointed.. and that’s really not like me either. Overall a big disappointment and over priced compared to other similar restaurants in the area. If the prices were lowered and the restaurant had a lower, perhaps four star rating, then maybe I’d have had less expectation and...

Starter: i found hair in my starter food and it was such a big hair in a bruschetta Main course: the food was not exceptional by any means, the taste was too average Desert: pana cotta was totally deconstructed! I am not sure how they even serve such a food when its a total mess

Totally I would say not a pleasant experience

(Not sure how to respond to owners response so I will respond here: I am not surprised by the comment of owner on my experience , we received also a very cold apology after seeing hair in the food which was surprising. Why would I intentionally make a bad review? I am just a tourist who will stay here for 3 days but spending money with hair in food and a deconstructed desert is a totally bad experience, and it needed at least some sort of nice manner in customer service and nothing more! I am not sure how you can take a comment on the very bad experience of a customer personal while I had this hair in my food just today as you see in the photo the plate is white and my first starter had a big hair on it in the vegetable and it was totally mixed with it, a big black hair… accidents can happen but how a business handles the situation...