La Cantinetta — Restaurant in Marseille

Lunch We were looking forward to our reservation here and the food was pretty good! The pasta is a bit more saucey than what we had in Italy but you can dip the extra using the bread. The service is a mixed bag if you don't speak French. Two of the staff members, both men and BIPOC, were friendly and kind enough to translate for us. We knew most of the menu by using Google translate (knowing Spanish also helps because the menu is in Italian). At no point did we expect anyone to be able to speak English but it was nice to have someone explain items of the day. There was a woman, who I presume is the owner bc she was huffy and bossy to other wait staff, was annoyed that we didn't speak French. She repeatedly shouted the menu at us even though we said, in French, sorry we don't speak French. When the appetizers came out, I motioned that we were sharing and went to move items out of her way. She threw the plates down and stormed off. She wanted nothing to do with us. It seemed unnecessary to be so rude. She seemed also short with the other two women near us who didn't speak French either. We were anticipating this for our trip but must have gotten lucky in Paris and Lyon. We didn't experience that in either city the week while we were there. Thankfully, we didn't have to interact with her after that. It's okay because either way, being on the receiving end of this attitude as a foreigner and not understanding the language allows me to have more empathy for those that visit ours who may not...

First of all, if you plan to visit this place - make sure you make a reservation well in advance. It is very packed and there is a good reason for this: the food is superb.

With this in mind, you have to swallow the rude reception - don’t know why, but people at the front desk are not the most friendly ones. Maybe a note to the owner of the business.

Now, once you are in, it is a different story. The service is swift and efficient. The staff speaks English and will help you choose, even though - whatever you pick, you won’t regret. We tried several antipastas - all of them were amazing. The pasta and the scallopini were great.

Fact is, that the presentation of the food is not something to brag about. Yet, the quality and the taste completely over-compensate for this....

Looks really nice, however.... The service is unfortunately rude, slow and generally incompetent. After being shown a table after 20 min we received a menu, had to wait for 20 minutes to order and only 20 minutes later we were told that two thirds of the menu are not available any more When we explained that we do not eat meat, but follow general vegetarian diet including dairy products and eggs, the waiter stated "We do not serve vegan food". For the restaurant of this level it is truly embarrassing not to recognize basic diets like vegetarian or vegan. It is even more embarrassing that the personnel is reacting rude towards guests To sum up: ruined evening, rude and incompetent behavior of personnel, long waiting time Not...