Ristorante Pensavo Peggio — Restaurant in Florence

It was our first dinner in Florence, the second stop of our 1 month long family vacation in Italy. We stumbled across this cute family restaurant purely by chance, and it turned out to be one of the best memories of the whole trip! After we check into our Airb&b in the Santa Maria Novella area, we stroll around the neighbourhood while looking for a place to have dinner. There are so many restaurants in the area, and while many of them look nice and have decent google ratings, we are either a little hesitant because of their emptiness, or intimidated by overly aggressive restaurant staff trying to attract our business. Finally, we see it: Ristorante Pensavo Peggio, tucked in on a side street, glowing with warm orange light. After consulting with the google review, as we always do when we travel, we decide to give it a try, hoping they will have seats for us since the only few large tables we can see are occupied. Fabrizio greets us and takes us upstairs, where we are the first customers, but it fills quickly soon after we sit down. Food: We ordered their Tuscany cutboard, Ravioli with truffle cream, Grandma’s Lasagna, potatoes and white beans as side dishes, and of course, Florence’s must have 1kg T-bone steak. They were all fantastic and it's hard to pick a favourite. My teenage daughter loved their ravioli while my 10-year old boy loved the lasagna, and of course the steak. I loved their side dishes, especially the white beans. One thing I would like to mention is that, if you are expecting 5-star fine dining presentation, this is not it. Having that said, we could all feel the heart and care the chef put into each and every dish. They are rustic, heartwarming, and delicious, just like a good Italian meal I'd imagined all along. We later found out the chef is the wife, Gabriella. Ambiance: Nothing fancy but comforting and welcoming. Orange is the main colour, which is the colour I would definitely associate with a Tuscan restaurant. The walls are decorated with old B&W photos of Italian celebrities eating pasta. I really appreciate that detail and the overall colour and lighting scheme as a photographer. It’s not a loud place overall, unlike many other restaurants we had and would have later during the trip. Service: It’s a family owned and ran business by a lovely couple, Gabriella and Fabrizio. Fabrizio first greeted us, sit us down, and took the order. A small detail - after giving us menus and water, Fabrizio went downstairs for a moment, and he reappeared minutes later. When he realized that we were still studying the menu, he just casually kept his distance, working on arranging other tables even though they appeared to be perfectly fine :) I believe he was doing that to not give us pressure yet be available when we were ready to order. He was quiet and reserved at the beginning while still very professional, but once we initiated the conversation, he began to talk more. Apparently, Fabrizio was a very artistic person, and after I showed him the photos I took in Venice, he immediately suggested checking out Canaletto's paintings. He also shared with us his experiences with other Canadian customers he’d had in the past and his positive impressions of them, once he found out we were from Canada. Later, I believe after he told his wife about us, Gabriella came upstairs to greet us, who told us they were happy to have us, in their last opening day before their month long closing for the summer holiday. It was serendipity indeed! Final Note: Before we left, we met a lovely American lady downstairs, who told us that she came back to Florence often, partially because of this restaurant and its owners. She seemed to know them well, and vice versa, and that, says a lot about this place and its owners. Just like that American lady, I would love to go back to this place,...

This restaurant was a recommendation by a friend in Minneapolis who reached out to us while we were in Florence. She said that we had to go here because the pasta and food is going to be exactly what we were looking for in Italy. She was SO right. I can reiterate what others have said about this restaurant - it's fabulous.

The pasta is fresh and the sauce in the dishes is literally to die for. When the lasagne comes out it fills the entire room with its intoxicating aroma. Some tables around us watched the lasagne come out and ordered it just based on its wonderful trail of smells that it leaves in the space.

The owner was running the place and waiting on his guests. From what we could tell the entire operation had two more employees in it that night - one other person helping with tables and cleaning and a cook in the very small kitchen area set into the front of the restaurant where you walked in. We mentioned to him that our friend referred us and showed him the photo they took at his place. He remembered them and was grateful for the recommendation.

On the way out, they served us homemade limoncello "on the house" while we waited to pay our bill and get some photos with the owner. If you're looking for an old-world restaurant experience that has not changed its recipes or how they do things, in a little crack on the wall in Florence Italy - this place will deliver exactly what you are looking for. We had been in Italy for two weeks already at this point and hadn't yet found the hearty bowl of pasta and mind-blowing lasagne we were seeking - until Pensavo Peggio.

The name of the restaurant is really interesting as it literally means "I Thought Worse" which perhaps sets him up to be excellent every single time?!! We highly recommend this place - it's priced well and offers a cute little ambiance tucked away in the historic city centre...

This restaurant offered appalling service. We were served by a curly-haired waiter who clearly served my friend and I extremely slowly relative to everyone else.

We ate in a timely manner. We made eye contact with the waiter several times. He knew we were done yet didn't approach us. While we waited, he approached others who were seated after us to ask how they were going and they were served promptly.

When he finally came to us, we asked for the bill (at this point, desserts were off-the-table and we just wanted to leave). This led to even more waiting. He eventually gave us the bill without limoncellos, which were complimentary. Some might see this is as a simple mishap but when you see a waiter give every other table complimentary limoncellos, and quickly divert his eyes from us whenever eye contact was made, it is hard to believe that he was not intentionally ignoring us.

We ended up having to walk downstairs to the bar to pay. I brought this up with the bartender who reasoned with us that he might've assumed that we don't drink, which is entirely wrong because I asked the server for a limoncello when we made our orders and no waiter should ever assume a customer's preferences.

The server used the excuse that he was the only one serving upstairs. This is true, however it is does not excuse the fact that he treated us poorly and there is a point when making customers wait becomes neglect. You may wonder if my friend and I offended him, but we are sure that we were just as civilised as everyone else and we were never treated this poorly before. This restaurant doesn't receive many poor reviews, I can see that, however, from my experience, this 1-star review is...