Casa Ernesto di Ernesto Valenti — Restaurant in Bergamo

!!!!! IMPORTANT REVIEW TO READ FOR TOURISTS !!!!!!

Our experience was not in line with the expectations and the service was very bad in our opinion. So first, the waiter took our order but didn't ask what we wanted to drink besides water, so we had to ask to have some wine ourselves. We had no choice in deciding which one as she just gave us the most acid, cheap wine that was there probably. Then some bread was brought, but we did not have anything to dip it in so we just started to eat it dry. We waited for like 20min for the cheese plate and the ham. Even though the bread was finished, they didn't take the bread basket back to the kitchen and left it on our table, taking up unnecessary space. In addition, the table was moving. Overall, more attention was given to the locals than to us, it came across as they did not really care about us. Also, we indicated that we wanted to share all the food, but they still gave us 2 separate plates in the end. Besides, they forgot to give us the salad that we also ordered. In the background, rock music from the radio was playing with advertisements in between. Pretty weird for the whole Italian setting, seeing so many photos of Italians but the music not fitting with it at all. The food was good, but nothing extraordinary in our opinion, that is why we decided to give 2.5-3 starts. When we wanted to pay and mentioned that the salad was missing, the cook kept smiling at us while saying "I'm sorry". No genuine compassion. Also the waiters didn't smile really.

In short, we don't recommend to go here (especially not for other people visiting Italy), there are much better places where the service is way better and the prices were more like two dollar signs than one since a main dish was around 18 euros (we really recommend Trattoria Parietti, food is way cheaper and service and quality soo much better!!!). Food is not the only thing that matters, and fakeness should be avoided, like here. Reaction to the response of the owner: your food may be okay to good, but since our experience with the service was way below average (even with regards to Dutch standards) it got overshadowed. Instead of offering solutions you are just saying that my review is redundant, instead of acknowledging that something like this can happen. Appearently, we got unlucky, but what I wrote above still happened unfortunately. I would rather not write such things down but I also want to remain honest about my experiences instead of just writing down only the good things that happened, because plenty of bad things did happen too. I advise you to be more genuine and compassionate when some of your customers did not have a great time at yours, and to perhals come up with solutions or at least mention that you take the feedback into account for improvement. Because there is no restaurant that is perfect, that assumption is fake. I expected a more adult response to our experience, we also read all of the reviews before coming but unfortunately we got hugely disappointed and that can happen, but it also makes us doubt whether the reviews are real or that we just got extremely unlucky while no compassion was being shown. Also, you still got 3 stars, which is not too bad considering all the negative aspects mentioned above.

Nevertheless, I hope you learn to accept criticism and that you will incorporate this feedback to give your clients a better experience than we had. Thank you.

Extra update: considering that you are only mentioning how good others found your place while completely ignoring the things that we experienced and highlighted while giving constructing feedback, this only shows that you are not willing to improve your place to make it even better. I hope that we were the last ones that had to experience this and I truly hope that we were the only ones. (When looking at the lowest ratings that you received we can already observe that we were not the only ones though while just giving responses like "enjoy...

Delicious food, poor customer service, arrogant owner!

The food was well cooked and above average There were a wide variety of dishes to choose from

The menu did not include any drinks The waitress did not make any suggestions for drinks. The table (next to the TV) was rocking which makes the dining experience rather unpleasant The waitress did not remove the food rests even when she served the main dish While the waitress poured wine for neighbouring customers, she never bothered to do so at our table The TV next to our table was too loud and playing advertisements constantly, giving the feeling of a cheap, fast food restaurant The owner seems to be narcissistic and passive aggressive when confronted with constructive criticism

Suggestions:

Serve your customers a drink menu, Fix the table next to the TV, Play a pleasant music playlist instead of advertisements (at acceptable volume), Train your waitresses to be more attentive (pick up the food rests from the tables, make pouring drinks for your customers a habit rather than an exception), When you receive constructive criticism from your customers, apologise and try to improve instead of aggressively defending your restaurant. The customer is...

After reading the good reviews of Casa Ernesto, we cancelled another reservation and chose to visit Casa Ernesto instead. We truly regret this. The place has a nice atmosphere and it seemed that all tables were booked, so that was a good sign. A young waitress welcomed us, and she was sweet and gave good advice when ordering. The food was disappointing and mediocre. Of all the places we have eaten in Italy this was the first place we did not get an appetizer. Small thing but an appetizer often gives a good idea of the standard of the kitchen. The servings were very old school and quite boring to look at (no wow effects). Examples are some salat leaves with balsamic and boring / soft fried potatoes. Also adding berries to a beef tartar was strange (and not really good). We ordered still water and it was served in a used bottle! My wife finished her first course first, and while I was still eating my food, her plate was taken by another waitress. Not good standard. The day before we had a huge and fantastic meal at another restaurant for the same price as today (EUR 80) and that included a bottle of wine. Today we only had two small glasses of red wine. So an expensive meal which not lived up to our...