Tamerò — Restaurant in Florence

I have been coming to Italy for many years, but have never stayed for more than a day in florence itself, so as we were staying for a week, I wanted to find a restaurant I'd never tried before, so I picked up a book to help find some. After reading a few descriptions I spotted tamerò and thought it sounded very nice with freshly made pasta and the history of the building, so we made plans to go for dinner, my mistake was that it was a public holiday and the square the restaurant was in, was full crowds of drunk youths and raucous music which was fairly surprising, once we found the restaurant, to my surprise it was almost completely void of all the noise from outside. We seated rather quickly and handled menues promptly, unfortunately that was the end of the speedy service, we had to ask more than once just for some bread for the table and had to find oil and vinegar for ourselves, while we waited for our first course. When it did finally arrive my mother and I had a mixed charcuterie board with lovely hams and cheeses, but also some deep fried doughballs with honey and cream cheese, and a strange flan made out of potato and bacon, but I'm still not sure, my father and girlfriend's orders were mixed up (which was our fault not theirs) and were actually quite nice. After we finally got the waiters attention he took away our plates and we waited for a short while for our main course. When our mains did eventually arrive, my father had a perfectly cooked and seasoned steak with a gorgeous mound of mushrooms, my girlfriend had a passable dish of pasta with mushrooms and tomatoes while my mother had a few seared tips of octopus, with something fried and stuffed with potato and with something green, then there was my pici with pepper and cheese sauce which was so over peppered that all other flavours were completely eclipsed and made it utterly impossible to eat after a few bites. (Which they did refund at the end). After the main course I had a quick glance at the puddings, before deciding we'd rather go for icecream near our apartment and asked for the bill and a double espresso for my father. After asking several times for his coffee and well After the bill had been paid his coffee arrived luke warm and without any real flavour, so all in all a somewhat...

The waitresses that met us at the door were very friendly and helpful. However a different waitress, with ginger hair, eventually served us and was very unfriendly and unpleasant in demeanor. She didn't look like she wish to serve us and we did not feel welcome. She did not listen and advise my colleague properly on a request/ query he had and he ended up getting a completely incorrect dish.

After the waitress served us the food, she basically disappeared- she never checked in on us, nor offered us condiments with our meal, nor a follow up beverage. The only person to pay attention to us and assist us was a young Indian looking gentleman who had a very pleasant, humble and friendly demeanor. The food itself was good but not spectacular.

The quality of the food was average and the portions very good. The service and general experience was awful. We waited for 40 minutes for our waitress to pay the bill and had to get the attention of the same friendly gentleman mentioned earlier to pay the bill. I was insulted to have been charged a 'per head service fee' as we received extremely poor service and we were not serve any pre-dinner items like fresh bread, etc, to warrant this charge. I brought this up with one of the waitresses who gave us the bill and she arrogantly said that this fee is applicable across all restaurants in Italy which is a poor excuse to get a 'gratuity' irrespective if the quality of service and experience of a customer.

To cap off the experience, the waitress who served us walked past me on my way out and I said 'grazie' out of courtesy but she merely gave me a look of disgust and never said anything as she passed me. What a bitter, unfriendly person! And to think we were the guests and were very patient in the entire process, still remaining polite to her when leaving.

This was an awful choice of restaurant and experience for our first ever night in Florence and should have visited the more popular amd busier establishments down the way or closet to where we...

I had so many amazing experiences in Florence and this restaurant is just appalling in contrast.

So many free tables, so many free waiters, so much time was wasted ignoring my sister and I while we waited for someone to acknowledge us and sit us down at a table.

We looked at each server that walked past us at the front door and we felt so invisible. It really doesn’t help when we are two Asian girls in a predominantly white country.

We are finally seated and we placed an order for pasta with mussels and a Margherita pizza.

The pasta was good but nothing amazing to everything we’ve had in Florence. The pizza on the other hand was so soggy as you move from the crust to the centre of the pizza. The sauce was bland. But hey, at least the crust was cooked perfectly (that was the only part we enjoyed and that’s saying a lot).

Getting seated was a mission but getting service while you’re already seated was also a mission. So many attempts to get the waiter’s attention and so many times we were left ignored. I made eye contact with a waiter who was standing idly at the door and she reached for her phone in her pocket and pretended to be occupied with her phone.

The table next to us, who were French, received better service than we did. We watched the waiter make conversation with them, asking them how the food was and if they’d like to order more food/drinks.

DO NOT VISIT THIS RESTAURANT! Other places does better food and waiters are much friendlier.

My fellow Asians and POC have thick skin if you are...