GIULIA — Restaurant in Budapest

UPDATE:

I was invited to a birthday dinner around 1 month ago, and considering I have had a different experience I decided to provide an updated review. We shared appetisers and everyone chose a main. The appetisers were really good, for main, I ordered the carbonara, it was not of my liking mainly because it was not a “true” carbonara sauce. The desserts were very good. The service this time around was also nice. Overall I decided to change my rating from 2 to 4 because of this new experience.

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Really disappointed about this restaurant. A group of friends and I decide to book here after we saw some nice videos of it on social media. We went for dinner last Saturday, we were 8, and we ordered almost every starter, both pastas and two of their meat dishes. The focaccia was good and so was the “elephant ear”, the rest was extremely underwhelming unfortunately. Out of the various starters we got, the “burrata” was not burrata sadly. It was mozzarella di bufala, which are two completely different things. As an Italian, I am pretty familiar with the difference between the two. I told the waitress that the “burrata” was not in fact a “burrata” and she shrug her shoulders not knowing what to say. As my friends and I were talking about the “burrata” topic, a friend asked the same waitress again weather they ran out and gave mozzarella di bufala or if it’s always like this. She said it’s always like this. Moving on to the pasta’s, the presentation was nice, but unfortunately missed the mark completely on flavour because there wasn’t any, really really bland. One of the pasta’s was also topped with raw tomatoes (fine), and raw cucumbers (??)……. One dessert, the semifreddo with caramel was good, the cannolo not so much. I hope they take this feedback to improve, especially on the “burrata”. Lastly the atmosphere is nothing special, normal. We spent 15,000 Ft each. If I choose to give them another chance and they have improved I will...

The restaurant has opened just recently. We reserved a table for 6, had both food and cocktails. Both the food and cocktails were good, the pasta was delicious, very creamy.

On the other hand, the service was terrible. We ordered starters as well, which were brought to the table with the main courses at the same time. Also, they missed my dish and 3 other starters as well. I was sitting there trying to call a waiter but was unsuccessful for about 10 mins. No one even came to the table to ask id everything was alright, and by the time I got to ask a waiter about the missing dish, the rest of our group were already finished with their food. They didn’t even say sorry once during the evening.

We were then trying to pay, but were unsuccessful to attract anyone working there to our table to ask for the bill for 15-20 minites. Its bizarre to me that no one checks in about how everyone is doing at the table, how the food is, do you want dessert, another drink, etc.

After we finally paid, no one said goodbye or sorry for the inconvenience, which is just so weird considering we were super patient despite the lack of attention and mistakes they kept on making.

Hopefully they manage to fix these mistakes, at this moment rating this place 3/5 might also...

I came here to celebrate my birthday with my family, and the experience was just okay. The server was kind, although fairly inattentive. We had to flag him down multiple times to receive service, and he seemed to be tired of interacting with us by the time we left. The atmosphere (garden) was very nice. The string lights created a beautiful ambience. Unfortunately, the garden is enclosed and smoking is allowed, so cigarette smoke just fills the space while you’re trying to eat, which is kind of gross.

In terms of the food, I really enjoyed the green tea negroni, the burrata dish and the focaccia. Very balanced and well-seasoned. The pappardelle con porcini and the tagliatelle vodka were just okay - it was very obviously Italian food made in Hungary. The olives that came with the focaccia just seemed like dry castelvetrano olives - no seasoning, oil, citrus, herbs… And the affogato was just not good. It was just a bit of crystallized icecream stuck to a glass with espresso on top. Pretty enjoyable.

Also pasta party surcharge on the bill? What? Being charged for eating pasta? There’s 4 of us here, not 15. Hmm… Minus...