Ristorante CINTO — Restaurant in Florence

Overview: this is a lengthy review to cover my table's collective feeling for the night. All of us are the easiest customers to take care of but let me say we are low-maintenance, not no-maintenance. I understand if you were understaffed tonight or if someone was having a bad mental health day, but goodness gracious I felt like I needed to put on an apron and help your staff to help get the operations turned around. We even had to point to waiter to the correct tables they should have been serving food/wine because of how much free time we had due to being ignored.

FOOD: I have never seen someone utterly condemn a steak to the depths of Hades like this. I ordered a 600gram medium rare ribeye. It was a quality cut of meat initially, but I was still picking the charcoal chunks out of my teeth after a few meager bites into this sacrilegious desecration of a cow that laid down its life only to be disrespected in such a way as to be cooked like it was on the bad side of the Spanish Inquisition. You even cut it up for me. How thoughtful, but are you color blind? Grey is not bleeding pink. Next let's talk pasta. Did you forget to put the pasta with the correct dishes? You made a Pici alla Carbonara with what appeared to be gigantic Ditaloni. And I'm not mad about that. I love carbs and trying new things, but have you ever heard of al dente? Your Nonna would be ashamed of the undercooked/crunchy pasta you allowed to leave your kitchen. As well as giving what amounted to watery soba noodles to another at our table with the Pappardelle al cinghiale. Do better! On a high note, whoever is working the carbonara sauce that night...give that person a raise; they are awesome!

SERVICE: We were a table of 5 & heavily ignored the entire meal, despite making eye contact and trying to get staff attention respectfully within customs. I'm not sure if you hated my flip flops or the annoying amount of colors on my button up shirt, but you can always ask me and my party to leave instead of treating us in such a manner if that is your issue. A couple sat near us 15 mins after us received water, wine, bread, appetizers, main course before we would be recognized for our order. Then staff sprinted off back to the kitchen never to be seen again. To keep morale up at the table we started doing over-under bets on how staff would further ignore us or weirdly delay food timings. In all I won two of the three bets, correctly predicted when our Prima Piatta would show up (as the most optimistic one at the table), and that they would bring the appetizer after the main courses. I failed to correctly gauge when they would bring the main course though, you surprised me by being 10 minutes beyond my rough calculations. We understand what a dinner rush is and are very open to waiting, but leaving our table out to dry isn't equitable or respectful much like the steak you would bring me later. Please communicate with us when it is obvious we are being underserved compared to the tables around us. Don't make us feel unworthy to enjoy a nice meal in your restaurant, it does the good reviews you've earned a great disservice. Now, I am not Italian or a wine aficionado, but I was told that the Rosé wine I was ordering from the menu was a white wine....even though I know Rosé is a blend of white and red. When it came to getting the bill, you had wasted so much or our time that we didn't even want change. We all scrambled to get as close to the Euro amount as possible and left, as were we there for over 2 hours and the whole back of the restaurant was now empty. I didn't want to win any more bets on when you would come back to see us for the check so cash it would have to be. Lastly, you stopped by with some free limoncello. It was thoughtful. But we didn't want Limoncello, we just wanted to be treated equally.

ATMOSPHERE: Solid Italian vibes, with good seating and not cramped. What I would expect when visiting the beautiful city of Florence. The curious kid wearing glow in the dark sunglasses with the toy truck was hilariously unaware of his...

This was the worst experience out of all the dining experiences I've had so far. We were recommended this place by our accomodations host and after checking the Google reviews, we thought why not. Before I start, let me preface that we had come to understand that service experience in Florence was not the best generally. Even by this adjusted standard, it was atrocious.

We made a reservation for 7:30pm about a week or so ago and arrived promptly at that time. Upon arrival we were greeted in a somewhat dismissive manner and seated indoors as the outside seatings were all taken. Fine, completely acceptable. Once we were seated, the ambiance appeared to be nice and welcoming. There were some other guests seated around us so they were occupied but not full at this point. The gentlemen took our drink orders, got them to us, and took our order for starters, with us making sure that we would be ordering more after we finished them. He took the menu away hurriedly and was very eager for us to just finish our ordering without asking any questions. We finished our drinks, starters, and waited for someone to come back the rest of our orders but no one did. For about 40 mins of sitting there and waiting. Meanwhile, this same gentleman was waiting and taking orders from all the other tables around us. We tried to get his attention but he never even glanced our way or made eye contact. After the 40 mins, we were starving and decided to get up to pay at the front and left. The same gentleman gave us the bill with this rushed demeanor and tone, then when I looked at the bill and saw something I couldn't account for and asked what it was for, he said nothing until after 3 times of me asking such (turned out it was a mandatory service charge). He was disrespectful and acted as if we were begging to be there. I wasn't sure what brought on such rudeness and dismissive attitude when there wasn't anything that would have warranted that.

There are plenty of good eateries around the city so attend at your own discretion. As for us, this will always be the single most horrendous human interaction we've experienced. I wish I could have given...

had our new year's eve dinner here and overall it is enjoyable. Tartars are great and we love the zucchini starter. Yet, it is the most interesting festive dinning I ever had. Two star for the friendly staffs who helped us and one star for the food. I took off two stars for their management's lack of training and poor execution of dinning service. It was 120 euro per person, and this is what happened: 1. No new cutleries after every dish. I deliberately put it on the old plate to hint that I might want a new pair and the lovely staff took it down and put back on the napkin; 2. An ikea knife for beef steak? (Nothing wrong with ikea just that I was expecting better). Let alone not matched spoon for dessert; 3. Menu was flashed to us and then took away. When we asked about what will be serving, the male staff got angry with the girl staff in-front of us. 4. We asked for medium rare, but the meat is raw inside (insert Gordan Ramsey Rant) 5. The candle was a bit dangerous, the poor girl staff burnt her hand when putting down the steak. And lastly, the most interesting part which gave us a good laugh: 7. The guy staff put down a big plate of dessert, put it in the middle of the table, and two spoons (unmatched, mine was prettier than my boyfriend's, yeah). It's a lava cake with a splash of ice cream on top and I dont see lava cake as florentine specialty. The ice cream was helplessly sliding to the side like a sunken ship before we dig into it. But that's okay, given what we have experienced so far. THEN! The finale of the evening came. The girl staff came with a second plate of dessert. Her face was complicated, as if questioning what, when, and how?! We asked if there is supposed to be one dessert for each person (the dessert was big for asian standard). She said no that ended with a question mark. Well, we don't know how it happened either, but this is what we had last...