AMON Restaurant - Cucina italiana — Restaurant in Berlin

Update on Jul 2025:

11 months after my review, Amon tried to remove my review and I had to submit my receipts to Google to have it reinstated. Goes to show their attitude on wanting to hide criticism, instead of learning from it as feedback, to prevent it from happening again.

Original:

The food is okay (the entree was actually quite good and promising for the rest of the meal), though mediocre for the price. The space is nice in the front section but they were packed, so we had to sit in a small room in the back that had a worse atmosphere.

The worst part of the experience was the service, as I'd ordered gnocchi and, instead, they brought out the dish, but using orecchiette (a pasta variant, not gnocchi). When we asked the waiter about it, we were told "This is the real gnocchi and how they do it Italy". This was obviously a lie, because, first, no it wasn't, it obviously wasn't gnocchi, and two, the dish presented didn't even match the pictures on the website (which did look like gnocchi, so clearly they know what gnocchi actually is). So, either there was some mixup or they'd run out of gnocchi, but the instinct to just lie when confronted with it was shocking.

Would not...

This was the worst restaurant service ever! I asked for "Pesto" (gnocchi with pesto sauce) from the menu, but I realised that I was given some Conchiglie (small shell pasta) with pesto sauce. So, I called the waiter and told her that they were not gnocchi, waiting for an explanation. To my total surprise, she told me: "In Italy those are gnocchi, in every part of Italy". I politely replied that those were Conchiglie, not gnocchi, explaining to her that gnocchi were made of potatoes, sometimes with spinach or pumpkin, but she insisted, although they were unmistakably pasta, Conchiglie... I was quite surprised that a waiter should give such an absurdly wrong answer, without knowing anything about the Italian basic culinary pasta or Italian food in general. She could have asked the chef if there had been a problem with the gnocchi and that they had to substitute them by Conchiglie. But no! "All over Italy, those are gnocchi!", she said. My assertive reply was absolutely confident, of course, I know what gnocchi and Conchiglie are! I'm afraid this terrible stubborn...

Easily one of the better Carbonaras I've tasted!

Unfortunately, the Guanciale (pork jowl/cheeck) used was cut in rather thin slices which meant that the frying process made it rather crispy. This had the adverse effect -- at least for my portion -- that the meat didn't mix well with the pasta and the cheese-egg sauce as it didn't cling to either. Meaning, despite the amount of meat served, you could easily end up with lots of forks without Guanciale or it dropping from the fork and then left over meat without pasta at the end. What made matters worse is that usually the oil that leaves the pork when fried, serves as an emulsifier and taste transport as the pasta sits in it and cools down slightly before adding the cheese-egg mixture. The result would be that even if you had some pasta without Guanciale, the taste would still be there! Since this pork seemed to be rather low-fat, this effect did not occur on my dish.

All in all though the Carbonara was still way above average of what you're served and worth a...