Nugolo — Restaurant in Florence

This place is a scam, and the service extremely unprofessional. I booked through their website and ticked the “pork” and “lupin” option as allergies. Upon arrival, they asked me confirmation I do not eat pork and I reconfirmed indeed. This is 10 minutes before being served a white spread with spices which looked like flavored butter. After eating they told us it was “lardo di colonnata” which is a spread made of pork fat. One of the guests at the table was Muslim and the unprofessional service of the restaurant created in that guest discomfort and offense. This is unbelievable. Not only, the restaurant was full of tourists and the service very slow and cheap. I got served a dessert with no explanation, just a girl who came to the table throwing the dessert on it and saying “ricotta”. I understood it was a dessert made of ricotta. When eating and digging the spoon into it, I found cherries, almonds and other things. It’s important to know what you’re eating especially if you have a tasting menu that just comes without you having the opportunity to choose. Such a cheap experience this “ricotta” throwing episode. This is not the end, as at the moment of paying I got a bill of 250€. I paid but then while walking out I suddenly remember that the tasting menu with 5 course that I chose and ate was priced 70€ on their website. We were two guests and did not take anything else other than water and two glasses of wine (12€ each by the way). So I went back to question the bill and they admitted I got overcharged (allegedly due to a “mistake”) by 80€. At this point I wonder I you can overcharge a menu that you likely billed dozens of times in the last days but in addition, they told me let us call the owner. And I was like, for what? Do you need to get permission to refund for the mistake you made? Unbelievable. In the end they paid my 80€ back and I left. This restaurant is mentioned on the Michelin guide, I do not know how that is possible. Such a cheap and unprofessional experience. Absolutely overpriced. A tourist trap. Avoid at all costs. I’m also Italian - not a tourist in my own country - and the food was nothing special or anything. The Tagliolini pasta with “truffle” or whatever, were just tagliolini swimming in a pool of truffle flavored butter. So you pay for pasta with butter. Room was very warm with flies all around my...

Il Nugolo has been a place recommended by many of my friends and colleagues in the past and last night I gave it a go with a group of 5. Straight off the bat, you’re informed of a no show fee (and quite a steep one I’d add) which is quite common with restaurants dealing with whirls of service and clients, however there were maybe two other tables seated, and maybe another couple arrived until closing, so that was interesting.

Let’s jump to the food - I liked it! I didn’t love it, but I was pleased with the flavors and overall the dishes were well executed and fired up at a perfect manner/timing.

I have to say it’s a bit confusing… you get to the table and there’s a butter knife and plate but no bread for the first thirty minutes of being seated. The welcome drink was a regular infused tea that could have been from a teabag for all I know as the flavors weren’t that interesting, and was served to me after a glass of Prosecco, not much sense in that. They bring out asian style shrimp crackers, boiled peanuts in small bowls, but how does that go alongside the menu I’m about to dive into?

Unfortunately, I left very disappointed due to the service and overall attitude of the place. We might have been out of luck, as we happened to pick a night where next to us was a birthday group, which happened to be friends of our waiter, and she made sure to not hide it. Complete switch of attitude from their table to ours, no engagement with us at all (I get it, some days are tougher than others… but if you’re serving me a fancy bread spread, I’d rather have your attention instead). Not even before we got our desserts, she was already out of uniform sitting at that table with her friends. A tad unprofessional in my eyes. Halfway through service a member of our group didn’t feel well and had to leave abruptly, we kindly asked if we could have their order removed, but apparently that can’t be done, maybe it’s part of their no-show fee….

Overall, kitchen has potential, the rest needs some...

Really confused by the superb reviews on here, I was sadly very underwhelmed. The space is cute, the food looks good, they’re nice with the service, but the taste is really just not that great. I hate to say this, but I drove in to Florence just to dine here for dinner and it was just meh, so I’m writing this to maybe save others a trip. The plating is very lovely, but for me, taste is most important and this just was not great. We had the cold dish of the celeriac carpaccio, and I do like the idea of it, I even like celeriac. The problem for me was that it was kind of lukewarm bordering on room temp, not cold like a refreshing carpaccio I expected, but not hot either. Then I expected more acid, but the flavor was very mild. You could taste the celeriac, but it was just, kind of boring all through. Nice little pops of pomegranate, but that was about it. And this was a dish that had come recommended by the host and I noticed was also part of their tasting.

The agnolotti sounded amazing as well, and the filling was indeed reasonably nice, but it was HUGE. I’ve had tiny parcels of agnolotti, but this one had osso bucco inside and were such massive parcels the ratio of osso bucco filling to pasta was just too overwhelming. And also it was kind of blended or something so it was like a thick baby-food paste. The taste of the filling was nice and rich but the texture was off, the size was off, the ratio was off. I do love osso bucco and agnolotti, so this was a disappointment for me.

The risotto, not much to say except the trout pieces were nice, everything else about it was OK, and tasted like what it sounded like, celery and rice.

Overall, this really wasn’t a bad meal, the flavors were kind of there at times, but nothing for me was special or particularly enjoyable that would make me want to come again. If you have limited time in Florence, I’d give this a...