Bagni Caranca - Ristorante Caranca — Restaurant in Bordighera

Lovely location, set by the sea side although the restaurant requires a massive redecoration. That said, it was quite an awful experience.

Staff extremely rude they would privilege to serve first “their friends” and local customers over other new customers although if I would have had a pleasant experience I would have come here more often since I own a holiday property in this town.

My experience:

Winter time and so not so crowded as it would be during summer time, I have been sat at a table and I had to wait over 30 min just to receive a menu… the personnel wasn’t even looking towards me, after 30 min that I was waiting I complained about not having yet received a menu a waitress came to dress my table and gave me a menu, then I asked to order and she called the owner I have asked for a baked fish and his response on a rude tone was: “since you’re in a rush I can tell you that it takes 30 min to prepare a baked fish!”

I ended up ordering some grilled calamari (the dish was very poor, not filling and definitely not worth the money!) as per picture…

Food overall, very average… I would even be inclined to say that it was mediocre compared to all the tasty dishes you could eat in the area.

Definitely not worth the price they charge. I haven’t yet tried the restaurants nearby on the promenade but I would imagine that it cannot reach any...

Avoid - unless you enjoy being abused while on holiday. They treat new visitors and strangers very unkindly, which is puzzling since they have a nice facility and lots of empty seats/shade on a well located and decent (though stony) beach. We spent a few hours driving the coast to find an ideal location with a restaurant and we were at first excited to find this one. Caution: if you chance it, definitely speak Italian (or try your best). Only one young man claimed to speak English (limited) and service was truly awful (we waited 30 mins for a menu and to order water while Italians around us who seemed like "regulars" and beach club members were served immediately). Questions we asked and were told "no": may we eat at our beach chairs? No (but a blonde Italian woman spent the afternoon bringing plates of food - including salads!- to her beach chair). May we have a drink on the beach (same deal, Italians were drinking all sorts of things we were denied), where can we shower? (directed to the one which cost a euro while others showered at the outdoor shower for free), and on and on. It was too bad, because other than this one bad experience, we really enjoyed our stay in...

We were a party of four over three generations and a mix of anglophones and francophones. I chose Caranca because I could reserve the beach loungers on-line. We had previously been to Amera plage next door (in 2020) so we were familar with the excellent location. We found the staff to be helpful and friendly despite the language difference. The food was simple but excellent. We had a mix of sandwiches and salads and cold starters which the staff kindly served to us at our loungers. All in all it was an excellent day and we would definitely return. We spent just under 50 euros per person for a lounger each under the tonnelle (gazebo) and lots of food but no alcohol. We were there on a Monday in June so the season was not...