Marina Grande — Restaurant in Amalfi

What is a Michelin Guide restaurant? Is it a lifestyle? A sticker on the door? Or just an imaginary rating standard? If it’s the latter, do we automatically start with 3–4 out of 5 points, or, on the contrary, do we judge with extra attention to detail?

Let’s try to be rational, fair, and most importantly, sometimes rely on our own feelings.

To begin with—yes, I recommend this restaurant. There were three of us. Normally, you need a reservation here, but even though we didn’t have one, and even though we arrived almost at closing time, they still kindly found us a table.

Every dish was delicious. Yes, yes, I know—a Michelin Guide restaurant that knows how to cook pasta. Shocking, right? You may ask—why come here? After all, you can get tasty pasta at a nearby place for two or even three times cheaper. So what’s the difference? Here, every dish is a carefully designed creation. A painted composition. Every ingredient and spice complements the dish and creates a swirl of flavors, turning into something new. Something unique. Food: 5/5

The restaurant sits right by the sea, with fresh flowers on each table and a warm, subtle glow of light that allows the sunset to take center stage. Atmosphere: 5/5

The service was flawless—elegant table settings, prompt serving, genuinely attentive staff, and above all, a feeling of effortless comfort. They even let us carefully choose from all the teas available. Overall service: 5/5

Of course, you can find elements of this elsewhere, but rarely brought to such perfection. If you still don’t understand what a Michelin Guide restaurant really is—come here and see for yourself.

P.S. We came straight after swimming at the beach, so I left the cushion on my seat wet. Sorry for not mentioning it...

The prices don’t match the quality of the food. A supposed to be Michelin restaurant where the prices are certainly up to the Michelin standard, but i don’t understand how did they get the star for the food. Although the food was fresh & of high quality there was no unique taste, texture nor creativity. It was not bad food, but an average food that doesn’t not match its price and especially not the Michelin standard. On top of that one of the Servers asked us for tips, which ket us think they do the nice service for the tips and not the experience, then we said that the food wasn’t as expected so we didn’t feel like leaving tips for it, yet nobody came to ask why weren’t we satisfied. Something that a Michelin restaurant should do.

UPDATE:

Dear Marina Grande Team, thanks for your reply. As i said nobody asked us how is the food, and my review is not a 1 star review, but an honest 3 star review to what my experience was, you can change a dish but you can’t change the way you cook, so for my experience this was not up to the value. We were 2 individuals and therefore 2 separate reviews, we do not share 1 account but each of us felt to give an honest review of what should people like us expect. I still rate the Service with 4 stars and asking for tips did not affect the review that much, it was just the cherry on the cake, but i gave 4 stars for the Service because nobody asked how is the food, which in a Michelin restaurant is expected in 1-2 minutes after the food is served or after the...

Food was very good, but the service was cursory at best, and really quite rude at worst. Food and drinks were slapped onto the table dismissively with barely a grunt. They couldn’t wait to get rid of us, perhaps because we didn’t order multiple courses and lots of expensive wine. We may have only spent €86 but that doesn’t deserve contempt.

In response to the man from the restaurant, I was trying to understand why the service was so poor, maybe we had somehow missed the point of the restaurant and you were annoyed that you had a table occupied and not spending much. But you say I am wrong, so what is your excuse ? Saying you are busy is no excuse. The man with the glasses was nice enough but if you were the man who brought the bill, then you have no place working with customers. I am 57 yrs old and have visited many hundreds of restaurants and you are the rudest staff member I can remember. My wife also said her evening was spoiled by the poor service in the restaurant. It left a bad taste in the mouth. Also, it’s not normal to just bring the bill and turn up with the card machine 5 seconds later. I can’t remember ever being brought a restaurant bill without asking for it. What you did felt like “pay up...