L' Ancora

I had a very bad experience with the service last night. The food itself was decent -- would give it 4 stars.

The waiter told me when he brought my check that there was a 25 euro minimum for a credit card charge. I told him I had no cash on me (which wasn't an issue the previous 3 times I've been to Europe in the last year; and hadn't been an issue anywhere else in Germany I'd visited in the last 5 days). He then asked me to order more food, but my meal was only 14.8 euros, so he was effectively asking me to order another entree, or at least 3 more drinks, or like a dessert and two more drinks, none of which I wanted. Then he asked me to go to an ATM and gesticulated out the window (and didn't tell me where exactly the ATM was or if there even was one nearby). I told him I wouldn't be doing that. He then told me that the credit card minimum warning was on the menu, and I told him that the menu was entirely in German, which I can't understand (which again, was not an issue elsewhere in Munich), and if he felt this was so important he could have verbally warned me initially. The waiter and I conversed in english when I made my order, I even asked him to translates part of the menu for me, so he is very aware of my language deficiency. And frankly, even if I could read German I probably would have missed the warning because this was not the type of thing I felt I had to be on the lookout for in Germany/Europe (given that it has never before been an issue). He then went to get his manager, who came over and asked me if I had PayPal, which I did not. They then acted like there was nothing else they could do about it, and I said, "But you have a credit card reader, right?" The waiter then goes to grab the reader, saying "I can't believe this", as he's walking away.

When he returns with the reader, he tells me "This is your last time here." So he felt the need to save face and act punitive toward a foreigner who flew all the way from California to visit this city, who was choosing to spend time in his restaurant, all over 10-50 cents of visa processing fees.

I do want to call out another Italian waiter at the restaurant who was very nice to me, who looked apologetic as I was leaving and waved at me kindly.