Principe Del Mare — Restaurant in Florence

DO NOT DINE HERE! FORCED REVIEWS!

After seeing this as a highly rated restaurant, with close to 5 star reviews - my friends and I came anticipating some good seafood. What we were met with fell far short. It took 25 minutes for our order to be taken, despite hailing the wait staff several times.

I ordered the seafood linguine, my friend the risotto and my cousin a pizza and they were all sub par.

My pasta was sandy, the scampi were clearly not fresh and frozen and the poop shoot was not cleaned out and the pasta was overcooked. My cousin’s pizza was watery and had maybe five pieces of capsicum and was extremely disappointing and just disintegrated when he tried to eat it. We felt slightly helpless as staff were not very responsive to their tables so we ate our food in silence despite not being happy which we now sorely regret as we all have stomach aches from what was meant to round off an eventful and pleasant day.

Once we were finished, one of the wait staff came over and pressured us to leave five star reviews for the service and post photos with the food - stating that nothing less would be acceptable- he barely even served us.

He watched over our phones and the table’s next to us to make sure that we were leaving five star reviews and grabbed my friend’s phone to which she told him to stop and that she felt uncomfortable with him doing so.

Please don’t believe the five star reviews from this place. One of the most awful experiences I’ve had in all of Europe and definitely a tourist trap because they force patrons to leave high reviews.

Please, PLEASE, do not dine here. This is the biggest tourist trap, despite...

This review is for foodies that understand what a real hidden gem is.

After having dinner in a 1 star Michelin rated restaurante in Firenze the night before, (spending 3.5 hours and $$$$) we decided to follow the advice of Eleonora, our Uber driver, who had told us Principe del Mare was the best seafood restaurant in Firenze.

I thought she was mistaken when I arrived to an almost empty restaurant…

To be completely honest, we considered leaving… but since we were starving, we decided to try the appetizers and based on how it went, we would stay or go.

We started with 2 appetizers: Octopus and Calamari. They were both superbly done. The Octopus was soft and full of flavor. Calamari was cooked to perfection.

Then, we asked for recommendations and were told to ask for the Tagliatelle and the Grigliata di Pesce e Frutti di Mare. The food was really worthy of a Michelin mention (Bib Gourmand maybe?)

We were both full at this point but dessert was needed.

Apple tart with Mascarpone and the best Cheesecake we have had in years! My wife does not like Cheesecake at all… but she couldn’t stop eating almost half of it on her own!

I normally spend hours browsing for restaurants to try whenever I visit a City, so I hope this review is read by many like me.

Certainly not a popular restaurant… yet the quality of the food is so high that it should be packed and with a waiting list.

Quick note: service could improve.

Overall, the best food experience I have had in Florence. Best...

The restaurant was really quiet which was a shame as the food was excellent. Apparently it is a new place and maybe taking a while to build its reputation? The octopus and potato starter was amazing.. Very used to hard polpo and boiled potato salad in the UK, this was a stunning dish, with a lightly creamed mash type potato but not at all heavy. The octopus was really tender and enjoyable, the inclusion of some cherry tomatoes and capers (an ingredient I never choose and I thought I hated) gave the dish a lively bite. My second dish was a problem because of my bad Italian and I should have realised from the look of the wait staff that I had misunderstood. I did get a tasty pasta and squid dish (not calamari on its own as I had thought) so the extra fries were a bit redundant. The restaurant took off the cost without any request from me which was generous and unexpected. One thing I really appreciated was the pre-meal 'bread' tray: very thin warm slices of pizza type dough with a little tomato and rosemary on them. Having been charged 3 or 4 euros every night for cold, hard, dried bread in a bag or basket this was an unusually edible and pleasant exception. Both staff were friendly and available, but the waitress was really kind, helpful...