Ristorante Borgo Antico — Restaurant in Florence

ROMANTIC DINNER ! Florence is a beautiful city by day and very spectacular at night...we love it. My wife and I flew into Rome on Thursday, March 20th to begin our 2 week vacation in Italy. We arrived in Florence by Bullet Train from Rome on Sunday, March 23rd. A well appointed king suite on the 5th floor of the luxurious Hotel Berchielli would be HOME for the next 4 days. Hard to beat that view of the picturesque River Arno ! We had a couple of day tours planned while in Florence and had engaged the services of our fav limo tour driver Martin who knew the ropes around here better than most. And more than that Martin had become our good friend since we first used his services 18 months before when he drove us from Florence to Bologna via the scenic route. At the end of our first guided tour of Tuscany Martin ( a true foodie ) recommended Borgo Antico to us for dinner that evening....THE BEST PIZZA IN FLORENCE in his words. We left our hotel around 6.45pm for the short walk to this restaurant but we took a wrong turn after we crossed over the bridge as tourists do ! Eventually we arrived here at 7.15pm and could see the outdoor patio was jam packed. Gianfilippo the charming manager smiled warmly and escorted us to a table inside. A server named Tomo soon came by to help us. We asked for iced waters and some artisan bread. I passed on a beer. Tomo didn't speak much english and soon after was replaced by Diego. I asked for some artisan bread to kick things off and ordered the Pizza rossa ( a crudo la burrata al tartufo e prosciutto crudo Red pizza, raw burrata with truffle and parma ham ). Diego kindly brought us glasses of Prosecco which I enjoyed...my wife is a non drinker. Meantime I walked into the adjacent dining room to check out the wood fired pizza oven...even said hi to Sala the Pizzaiolo who was cooking our pizza. YEAH BABY ! Our amazing looking pizza arrived in a few short minutes. After Diego provided some fresh grated parmigiano we dug in....very delicious toppings and perfect texture base. DESSERT ! The dessert menu had some tempting items on it and besides we always want dessert. My wife chose Torta al cioccolato ( chocolate cake ) while I ordered a trio of Gelato ( vanilla, pistachio & chocolate ). A server named Andrea brought out our desserts. No complaints from me....Italian gelato is the best anywhere. My wife was happy enough with her chocolate cake. WE HAD A...

When we walked by Ristorante Borgo Antico, we saw a number of people enjoying pizza and it looked good. We decided to sit down and see what the pizza was like. We first ordered caprese salad and 2 Aperol Spritzes. The drinks and salad came quite quickly. The tomatoes in the salad were not ripe but the cheese and balsamic vinegar made the salad taste ok. The drinks were not stirred and came without straws so we had to use our forks to stir them. Service after this was very slow and we waited quite a while with empty glasses before our server came by again. When she did, we ordered 2 pizzas (Naples and Sausage) and 2 glasses of house wine. When the wine came it was warm - warmer than mouth temperature. When the pizzas came they were not sliced and were soggy. Only one side of the pizza crusts was toasted and it was obvious that neither of the pizzas were rotated in the wood oven. The anchovies on the Naples pizza were disgustingly fishy and not cooked. We only had 1 bite from two pieces from the Naples pizza after having to cut up the pizzas ourselves. The Sausage pizza was soggy but edible. We sat at our table waiting for our server to check in on us but they didn’t. We looked over and saw that she was chatting with someone not paying attention to the tables. Meanwhile the lady at the table next to us sparked up a cigarette and smoke wafted toward us. Moments later a gentleman at another adjacent table lit up as well and we were engulfed in disgusting cigarette smoke. Stomachs turned, I finally waved over our server. We told her that the Naples pizza was not good (we only had 1 bite) and that neither pizza was properly cooked. She apologized and offered us a limoncello but we declined and said we just wanted to leave. She brought us the cheque and to our surprise they not only charged us full price for the pizza but also a €7 cover charge. The bill for 2 Aperol spritzes, 2 glasses of house wine and 2 pizzas was €82!!! A complete ripoff. Bad food, poor service and overpriced. Stay away. Instead go next door to the Gusto restaurant. The food there is way better and the service...

That was the biggest new year’s eve food scam I have experienced in my life so far. To sit outside in the cold they charged 13 EUR (!) coperta for two persons (and gave us two pieces of cold dry bread with olives; we were also not aware of that high charge - they did no lt tell us and I have never had seen this in my whole life). The one dish with meat was basically consisting of 90% bones. The second dish was good. For the dishes they basically (more than) doubled the prices compared to the standard menu (it was a new year’s eve card but the dishes were standard with just more than double prices). So you paid for a basic pasta 26€ (!!). In the end we payed 82€ euros for just two basic dishes and two drinks. I have seen a lot but that was a small shock for me as you normally would pay 30 or 35 for that. And we were not having a special New Year’s Eve dinner or anything like that. We were just walking by for a small bite outside…

The waiters were on top unfriendly and rude. They never asked us if we liked it or anything. The atmosphere at that place outside was good though. It is a at a beautiful piazza in Florence.

Would never come again to that restaurant and obviously don’t recommend it. The only interest they have is to rip-off tourists (at least at that night). And I don’t let it count that it was “New Year’s Eve”. Yes, it can be more expensive but what we experienced was...