Locanda Barbarossa — Restaurant in Como

We had a wonderful time! It started with us going in the afternoon to make a reservation for the evening. After telling the gentleman that "we would like a reservation at 8" multiple times and being answered with the sentence "a reservation at 7?" Multiple times we finally decided that we would love a "reservation at 9". When we had arrived at 9:01 we were greeted with a plethora of confusion and were swiftly told to "sit down! Wait!". It felt like home :) after 15 minutes we were asked in italian (which we do not speak, unfortunately. As a side note: i love italian and hope to be able to exchange a few words one day with a real italian without him noticing how bad i am at his own language) if we would like a menu in english or in italian. Suffice it to say it took a few tries for us to understand what we were being asked. Eventually, god bless us, we realized what these wonderful people were asking us and we answered "English! Grazie!" but we had apparently missed the mark.... because, and for the life of me i still do not quite understand how, we were actually told our table was free! After we had exclaimed "oooooh! Sorry, that's what you mean" and they had repeated "oOOoooHHooHHh hahahahah" we were brought to our table under the wonderful bright white lights. We ordered a bottle of wine and a couple of pizzas. What we didn't realize is that our pizza came with an insightful lecture! After mispronouncing the word "siciliana" i was told something fascinating about the letter "c" for a good 2 minutes. I don't quite remember what it was, since i hadn't learned italian yet, but i was very grateful for the explanation (i think I'm getting there though). So grateful in fact that i proceeded to ask if they had "Olio al peperoncino" after which the same wonderful gentlemen who had taken our reservation, told us to wait when we arrived at our reserved time, told us our table was free in a language i don't understand and explained why my pronounciation of a word was fundamentally wrong gracefully added that i must surely mean "Olio piccante". What an experience! We'll be back! What fascinates me the most is that this gentleman spoke english flawlessly the whole time!!!! Jokes aside, italy! You're the best! Can't wait to be back! Won't be coming back here though! :)

By the way: when you get to the "bottles" section of the wine menu am i weird for missing the "375ml" disclaimer? It just seems strange to me... surely not many people look at a wine menu and go "oh, lets just double check they mean 750ml bottles and not 375ml bottles." i don't know... maybe I'm the only one.... either way its fine, it was stated in the menu. But still... its...

Service was ok except when we mentioned we did not want any drinks and he looked & sounded annoyed as he took away our menus.

Food was not very good. The beef lasagna had a strong beef & cheese taste (the only thing I could taste). There was little lasagna sheets. The pizza used canned ingredients - canned mushrooms and artichokes. Price was decent though.

Overall, would not recommend if looking for good food to eat.

Edit: After reading the reply Completely ignored the service part but sure, everyone has their bad days when they're in the service industry.

Sure maybe I haven't had good lasagne or beef ragout but the one here is definitely not good either. If it's not good, it's not good! Also, chicken with almonds is not even a Chinese dish, it's American-Chinese, and chicken and almonds would not have a "strong" taste as compared to beef, cream and cheese🤦So the comparison doesn't make sense. To clarify, the beef and cheese taste was so strong/overpowering, that it was tough to continue eating. We call it "jelat" or cloying for the english word. I only finished it because I am not a fan of food wastage.

Yes the ingredients were canned, the owner/manager told us himself (a friend asked them about it). So not sure what they're talking about but could be a translation issue.

I'm not sure what's your point with the reply. The whole point of a review is to give your own perspective on the place/restaurant. My PERSONAL experience was bad but others might have been good and that's fine because we all have different preferences. But I think it's quite immature and unprofessional to respond in this manner and even a bit racist (name is not even Chinese, it's Japanese😮‍💨). I hope you'll be kinder to your future customers/reviewers.

I do not write reviews unless they're really good or really bad. You can take a guess which one...

Based upon reviews here we decided to try Locanda Barbarossa for our one and only night in Como. We couldn't have picked a better place.

Making a phone reservation an hour or so before turned out to be a great idea, as when we arrived they were turning many people away.

The restaurant is contemporarily designed, though perhaps a touch overlit. When we got there the dining area was loud and packed with what seemed like enthusiastic locals - always a good sign.

OK, on to the food. Oh my, the food...

The food was simply sublime. The Bresaola was sweet, soft, and not overly salty. The parma ham starter was huge, and came with a full ball of the softest bufala mozzarella you've ever had.

Pizzas seem to be this place's specialty: there are probably 30+ on the menu. The base is light and crispy. The toppings fresh and generous.

I had a pasta dish with shrimp/scampi. What arrived was nothing short of a revelation. Tiger prawns bigger than my hand, fresh pasta that couldn't have been cooked better. All for €15!

Wine by the glass is an unbelievable €4. The Montepulciano they were serving that night was amazing.

Get down to Locanda Barbarossa if you're ever in the Como area. Don't hesitate. We're already planning to come back to the area, and this restaurant is a big part...