Golden View Firenze — Restaurant in Florence

I don’t leave too many reviews unless the experience was exceptionally good or exceptionally poor, and in this case it was very poor. My wife and I decided to go out for a stroll on our last evening in Florence looking for a nice place to eat an Italian dessert and have a drink. We walked across the Ponte Vecchio bridge and stumbled on to this restaurant. Ambiance and view looked great so we went in and approached the bar tender who was the first person to greet us. At first we were willing to just sit at the bar, however he bartender offered us a table, the view was so nice of the bridge with the laser mapping we decided to sit at a table. This is where things began to go south. We sat there for at least 20 minutes before the hostess came back to our table to take our order which I found unusual. I even asked her if a waiter was going to take our order. She gestured to us that she would be taking our order, so we made our drink and dessert selection. That was the last time we saw anyone again until we literally had to get up and walk back up to the bartender on our way out to ask for the bill so we could pay and leave. The hostess was sitting at the bar eating he dinner and didn’t even acknowledge us. I even mentioned to the bartender that I’ve never been to a restaurant where I had to do this. The atmosphere, location, drinks and dessert were very good, however the service was better at a McDonalds. Very disappointing experience and would...

If you want a great view with a disappointing meal, this place is for you!

I'll start off by saying this view is very nice. However, keep in mind that you're eating on a very still river, so towards the end of the night, the glass window was covered with bugs.

With that said, the service was horrific. When we walked in the staff told us that they don't open for 10 more minutes even thought we had a reservation for that exact time. The waiter was extremely awkward and would just linger or stand behind us without addressing us or asking us if we were ready to order etc. We had to ask him if he was here to take our order. Waiting staff also barely came to the table to check how food was.

This is also a small detail, but as you're eating bread, crumbs tend to go all over the table. Now normally this isn't a big deal, but when dinner items are 60, 70+, you expect crumbs to be scraped off the table. If you want to charge like you're classy, play the part.

As for the food, it was bland. Nothing blew me away, for the price it's unacceptable. We got the seared scallops, crab salad, swordfish, and pistachio cake.

Update: They took this down to silence my review, and that tells you exactly what you need to know! Review lowered from 2 to 1 because of the...

During Easter Monday we were looking for a place where to eat the real “Fiorentina”, the signature juicy T-bone steak, cooked on high temperature charcoals, which is very typical dish of Florence and most of Tuscany. A local friend recommended us this place for lunch, and we phoned the restaurant on the same day. We didn’t have high hopes to find a table for five people with such a short notice, but we had to be surprised. In fact we got one of the tables with the nicest view, by the window overlooking the Arno river and the Ponte Vecchio, one of the main tourist’s attraction in Florence. Food was excellent, we had Crostini toscani (liver pate on toasted bread) as appetizers, a 1.4 kg Fiorentina (of course!) to share, all accompanied by a bottle of Rosso di Montalcino. We closed the meal with desserts and coffee. The service was brilliant, the waitress assigned to us was always attentive to our needs but not intrusive. And even if we had finished our lunch, we never felt pushed out of our chairs. It might be argued that the price is above average, but I was more than happy to pay for the food quality (and quantity), the view and the service received. I would highly recommend...