Trattoria Leonida — Restaurant in Bologna

Nice ambience, old-fashioned decor promised good, traditional food. The first jarring note was the waiter trying to upsell us some of the more expensive dishes on the menu. Second jarring note was giving my dish to someone else so my wife had to wait with cooling food while they started to make mine from scratch again. When I complained about hers getting cold in the meantime they took it away and brought it back reheated. Third jarring note, when we mentioned we hadn’t been happy, at the cashiers desk, the manager laughed and seemed more interested in a phone call. An apology was clearly unthinkable. Treated with mild contempt all in all. Such a pity to have this sour note on the eve of our departure from this wonderful city. I guess we were pegged as tourists: no need to try too hard.

Update response to the response from the restaurant below: thank you for your most ungracious reply. Firstly, I am astonished that you thought to insult me and my wife in this response. She was "sulking"? Really? I sat with folded arms like an Indian? What tosh! You make it sound as if we deserved our treatment from our fictive postures. This by the way is known as an ad hominem attack: attack the person rather than respond only to the issue at hand. It is a very ugly way to try to deflect the main point. As it was, I was having a pleasant discussion with my wife. Secondly, how were we to know the dish was not just reheated? It was whipped away and returned later without an explanation of any kind. Not one word. And if five minutes is all it takes to prepare a new dish then you're running a fast food restaurant. Your claim that you apologised to my wife "several times", let alone at all, is a lie, pure and simple. What tipped me into writing this Google review in the first place was the fact that when we raised the issue at the checkout there was not even the slightest "we are sorry", all you said was "era un sbagliato" with a smile and instead of asking permission from the caller to hold on so you could deal with an apparent awkward situation, you took the call. I didn't threaten a negative review, I promised one and here it is. My free advice to you is, just practice a bit more humility and communicate better with your customers...

The food was very good. The service, however, was lacking. As a matter of fact, as my friends and I entered the restaurant, which was empty by the way (it was 7 pm, we eat early), they sat us in the most uncomfortable place possible. We were placed near the door of the kitchen which was constantly being opened and closed. At a certain point, one of the waiters rudely asked one my friends to sit closer to the table, because he (waiter) could not walk into the kitchen with as much ease as he'd have wanted (this wouldn't have been an issue, had they not placed us there!). We all felt quite unwelcome and the waiter was rude and condescending throughout our entire dinner, which made us feel uncomfortable and as if we were bothering them by being there. It is a shame, because the food was really great and it arrived to the table very quickly. Hopefully they will take this into consideration and try to be a little nicer to clients in the future. The chefs are undoubtedly great and so must be the owner for having created such a nice menu, but unfortunately, the only and very important aspect that represents the main downside was the lack of...

Good food, horrendous service as per most bad reviews here. It’s a real shame as the trattoria is really nice, the food is good but the staff and service really weigh on your life choices of being here. We made the mistake of ordering starters which meant our waiter forgot about our mains. Their system does not work. After about 30min of seeing the same dish we ordered getting served to all other tables, we ask the waiter for our food, he replied all is under control. 45min we asked again, and then finally he did take it under control. We stayed in their restaurant for 1h15min and ordered bread and ham for starters and then their two most popular pasta dishes so we should have been out of there in 30min. Shame. Another aspect is the price. We paid €51 for two with no drinks. Later that day we went to Osteria della Orsa where we had more food, better food, for cheaper and a...