Locanda Cerami — Restaurant in Catania

I organised my birthday dinner here, with a table for 13 people. The setting and atmosphere were very nice. What made the experience really bad, and got me very angry, was the service. How can you have a large group table and not come to take the order or even ask what people want to eat? Nobody came unless we specifically asked them.

We ordered 2 bottles of white wine at the beginning, and after sharing them in glasses, there was still half a bottle left. They just left it on the table without ice or anything else. Later, we ordered a 3rd bottle, which never arrived! At that point, I decided to leave, because I wasn’t going to beg them to do their job, especially on my birthday.

The food was okay and served quickly, but the service was extremely slow. The waiters were very unprofessional: no English, not attentive, and not clever enough to manage the job. They asked us 3 times how many other chairs do we need (we needed 2 other chairs for kids). If you have time to lose calling the waiters for everything you need this is the perfect...

It was our first night in Sicily and in Catania in particular. We found Locanda Cerami on our Lonely Planet guide, which we find trustworthy all our the world foodwise. We 've never been to Sicily before and even though Greece is a neighbouring country we don't have many exciting pizza restaurants. So on our first night there was no other choice but ...pizza. We made a reservation and we arrived on time around 9pm. We waited for a couple of minutes just taking in the scenery. Locanda is located next to a church and at night they put tables on the church's front steps. Really picturesque and beautiful. A simple but well put-together restaurant. Good service. But let me get straight to the food. We ordered a bottle of white wine (Etna bianco), a plate of prosciutto con rucola and two pizzas. Great variety. We were advised not to get more appetizers because the pizza is more than enough. They were right. And were those pizzas worth of the whole trip? They were! I will never ever forget the pistachio one....

The food was good but the service was terrible. Not slow, just unpleasant and hostile for no reason. I think they were training our server or something because he spoke to us in a whisper and hovered around the table like a prison guard (until you actually needed him, at which point he was nowhere in sight). Just super awkward. The rest of the servers weren't much better. They were all scowling and laconic whenever they'd bring food. The pizza was amazing and the manager seemed nice, but I wouldn't go back until the staff learns to smile at guests and make them feel welcome, ya know, like in a hospitality industry. For the record, I speak Italian, and have had no similarly poor service in Italy speaking either English or...