Sale e Pepe — Restaurant in Berlin

Sale e Pepe: A Casual Italian Spot with a Home-Style Touch

Sale e Pepe is a laid-back Italian restaurant near the city center, offering home-style dishes without unnecessary frills. We visited for lunch, and the decor, music, and ambiance created a nostalgic Italian feel.

The menu is straightforward, featuring mostly traditional dishes. However, the starters were underwhelming. The bruschettas were quite small, and the bread didn’t resemble what you'd typically find in Italy. The cold cuts and grilled vegetable platter was decent but lacked refinement for a restaurant setting, and the portion felt pricey for what was offered.

For the primi, we had the scampi linguine and mushroom penne. Both were well-cooked and flavorful, though penne wasn’t the ideal choice for the mushroom pasta, which had very little sauce or gravy to coat the pasta properly.

The calzone, on the other hand, was well-executed—thin dough, quality ingredients, and a satisfying bite.

Overall, it’s a nice spot for a casual Italian meal, but some dishes could be refined for a better balance of authenticity,...

Food was good and came out pretty fast. However the service was appalling. My partner and I speak English and only know a small amount of German, we entered the restaurant and (in German) apologised and asked if they spoke English. So far no issues. We then sat down and ordered our food and drinks, again no issues yet. Then once we had finished eating and the plates were taken away, we were left at our table for 45 minutes to without anyone approaching to ask how the meal was, whether we wanted to order anything else or if we were finished. It felt like we were being ignored on purpose as the waiters would approach every table around us except for us, 1 waiter even had a conversation with the table next to us laughing and pointing at our table. I am aware we couldn't understand what was being said but pointing at us and laughing cannot be taken any other way than rude. Then had the cheek to ask for a tip. Long story short, if you're planning a visit to Berlin and don't speak much German, avoid...

The food was good, especially the antipasti house plate! The atmosphere was intimate and cosy.

And while the staff was bubbly, the lady that was our waitress did something that I have NEVER experienced, and I hope to never experience again. When we were done with the antipasti (using cutlery was required for the antipasti plate), she came to take our plates. We had placed our used dirty cutlery on the plates, as you normally do. She took the plates, but took the cutlery off and threw it back on the table. We were then served main course and the dirty cutlery wasn’t taken away, nor was clean cutlery given. Had to use the same cutlery for the main course. And while we enjoyed the food, the way the cutlery was handled left a bad aftertaste,...