Nicolaus - Il Bistrot dal Mare — Restaurant in Bari

Our visit to Nicolaus Bistro in Bari was a truly bizarre and contradictory experience. The food was absolutely very good, but almost everything else was a complete letdown.

The service was horrible—slow, inattentive, and not at all what you would expect from a restaurant charging their prices.

What was truly a disgrace for the cost of the meal was being served on paper plates. We were even given plastic cups for our water, with the single saving grace being that we at least got a real fork. The whole setup felt cheap and utterly out of place for what we were paying.

And yet, despite all of that, the food itself was fantastic. We ordered a salmon panini, some potatoes, grilled veggies, and a whole chopa fish. The fish was super expensive, but it was incredibly fresh and cooked perfectly. The food was so good that it made the poor service and presentation even more frustrating.

Ultimately, Nicolaus Bistro is a strange paradox: a place with truly excellent, expensive food served with the terrible service and presentation of a cheap fast-food joint. You'll eat well, but you'll have to overlook a...

After reading the reviews I thought I was in for a treat. I only had one dish but the table next to me of four people also had food that wasn’t up to a great standard. I had the lobster linguine and felt that it lacked flavour and depth. I’ve had much better in the south west of Napoli. There was no flavour of stock or any kind of reduction in the sauce, it was simply just tomatoey, oily and tasteless. Not to mention the sheer lack of actual lobster that came with the meal. The service was slow despite me being there before dinner service, they took orders of bigger tables before mine when I arrived first. The red wine was also minimal. What I will say is that the presentation of my meal was very good, but flavour...

One staff have her kids with her at work, which is fine, but they kept running around touching the tables people were sitting at, without the staff said anything. One kid ACCIDENTALLY spilled our drinks at our table when running around so our clothes and bags got wet, sticky and dirty. The staff DID NOT apologies to us and was VERY rude and did not offer new drinks, we had to ask for new drinks. NOT the kids fault, the ADULT staff bringing the kid should be more aware of the kids. In the reply they mention they gave us free drinks, it’s not true, we paid full price, they REPLACED the drinks we received 5 minutes before the kids accidentally spilled it, when we asked twice for it to be replaced. Do...