Alex — Restaurant in Lecce

We had reservations and Alex was recommended by the owners of our apartment in Lecce. We were greeted by a man sitting in the outside dining area and asked if we wanted inside or outside. We chose inside but when we went inside we were told “no” and the woman pointed outside. The man who had greeted us told the woman it was ok to seat us inside. The woman asked us about water and we ordered 2 bottles. The woman then brought us menus. We decided to order different wines - one glass to start. A waiter came to our table - we proceeded to order- I ordered a white wine and the waiter said one, two, three- I said one glass for me and then our friend ordered a glass ,a primitive ,and again, the waiter said one, two or three loudly and then picked up the other two people’s glasses and walked away, before they could even order. We felt really uncomfortable. The menu offers wine by the glass. Why was this problem? We could only surmise that it was just too much trouble to serve English speaking customers? We weren’t sure what to do. The waiter didn’t return to our table. I asked if anyone wanted to leave and the other couple said oh yes! We offered to pay for the waters but the woman would not accept our money. We were fortunate to find another restaurant- friendly, very good food. Not sure why a business would want people to feel so unwelcome. We’ve traveled in Italy many times and thankfully, never experienced this treatment before....

Everything Vorrin Tal said.

Service was appalling. We waited an hour for the waiters to come and tell us first, that they were out of salmon, and then that they'd served the rest of our orders to another table. Then I got another story that they'd not put the order through after they told us we'd have to substitute salmon for tuna.

Then they tried to overcharge us for a plate of potatoes that our original waiter told us came with our dish. Incredibly, our waitress got all huffy when I told her I wasn't paying for them. I also refused to pay the coperto of €2.00/person as it wasn't written anywhere on the menu and which I felt was another blatant attempt to rip off the tourists.

We had no less than 5 people providing "service". We also had a lovely Latin extravaganza including Cher and then morphing into Barry White blaring out of the speakers near us. I begged one of the five waiters to turn it down. After the second request, he did. They were full of apologies but what would have been more effective was to refrain from adding insult to injury.

Alas greed got the better of them, hence this...

HORRIBLE EXPERIENCE !!!

walked in the restaurant and was looked up and down due to the attire we were wearing (jeans and nice jumpers).

as well, after greeting the staff in italian and making an effort to make small talk, we asked if they could speak english (in italian), to which the waitor responded “do you speak italian”. very arrogant service and was not impressed with the way they carried themselves when dealing with serious allergies.

i had an allergy card made up in italian to ensure i was respectful of the language but at this restaurant it was taken and laughed at…. not a good look given that it is a serious and common allergy.

very unfortunate as i’ve been in italy for the last two weeks and have been treated with nothing but the best from all (meals especially made or just making am effort and taking allergies seriously) but this specific restaurant was very different.

i hope others don’t experience the same poor service …. after 10 years in hospitality myself, i struggle to understand how waiters can treat others like this …. i will...