Pepe Nero — Restaurant in La Spezia

One of my favorite restaurants in the world. The food is amazing, the service is spectacular, the staff and owners are amazingly friendly, and the atmosphere is very warm and inviting. In addition, the menu includes English, and Stefania, owner/waitress, speaks it at an almost native level. The restaurant is always busy, but they seem to always find an available table, although advance reservations are strongly recommended on weekends. Everything on the menu is homemade, from the home cured anchovies to the pesto, and of course the wide, creative and varying weekly array of ravioli - a house specialty. On any given day one can find on the menu around 3 seafood based ravioli dishes, 3 meat based ravioli dishes, as well as vegetarian ravioli dishes. Personally, I also love the simple side dish of grilled vegetables, which is...

English:

The managers are very rude. We are a group of 8, and I am gluten intolerant. I ordered take away food from somewhere else and was trying to eat it with my other 7 friends, but the male manager told me impolitely “it’s unbelievable, you cannot eat here” although there are 7 other orders and my food was unbranded.

Anyways, they have the right to refuse me eating here with outside food but they could’ve said it politely instead of embarrassing me in front of everyone.

And the other thing is that we wanted to join tables cause we’re a big group, however the female manager refused as well and told us that we would be blocking the street, when it clearly wouldn’t, and she was very agitated like there is no room to talk about it or explain to her how to do it.

Most of us were just so hungry so we had to settle for their rudeness.

It seems like we are bothering them by eating at their restaurant.

The waiters wearing white however are very nice and welcoming, they should be the managers of this place.

Italian:

I gestori sono molto scortesi. Siamo un gruppo di 8 persone e sono intollerante al glutine. Ho ordinato cibo da asporto da qualche altra parte e stavo cercando di mangiarlo con gli altri 7 amici, ma il manager maschio mi ha detto scortesemente "è incredibile, non puoi mangiare qui" anche se ci sono altri 7 ordini e il mio cibo non aveva marchio.

Comunque hanno il diritto di rifiutarmi di mangiare qui con cibo esterno ma avrebbero potuto dirlo educatamente invece di mettermi in imbarazzo davanti a tutti.

E l'altra cosa è che volevamo unirci ai tavoli perché siamo un gruppo numeroso, tuttavia anche la manager donna ha rifiutato e ci ha detto che avremmo bloccato la strada, quando chiaramente non sarebbe stato così, ed era molto agitata come non c'è spazio per parlarne o spiegarle come farlo.

La maggior parte di noi era così affamata che dovemmo accontentarci della loro maleducazione.

Sembra che li disturbiamo mangiando nel loro ristorante.

I camerieri vestiti di bianco però sono molto gentili e accoglienti, dovrebbero essere i gestori di...

DO NOT GO HERE - AVOID. AVOID. AVOID!!! THE OWNERS ARE DISHONEST.

I just had dinner with my family. My brother ordered a steak that was absolutely the worst - it looked like dog meat. We immediately sent it back. When I went to pay the bill, the 20 Euro steak was not off the bill. When I kindly asked them to take off the bill, they refused and started yelling at me. When I argued back, they threatened to call the police. At that point, I left and will dispute the entire charge.

Up until tonight, my Italy trip was perfect. This experience put a terrible damper on my last night...