Osteria del Bastian Contrario — Restaurant in Lucca

Such a disappointment. We'd visited this restaurant six years ago when we first arrived in Lucca and the food was simple but delicious, but it's now changed so much that it's not recognisable. Firstly I'd like to say that the staff are lovely and really friendly. Secondly the starter was delicious, but so it should have been. It was mixed meat with a variety of salami, lard, and other meats, all very nice. It definitely went downhill from there... I had chicken and porcini mushroom and ordered roast potatoes, and my wife had pasta with porcini. Mind you, it took a long time to decide on that as the menu is practically the same length as War and Peace! Way too many options and should be optimised. The food was delivered quickly, but just so disappointing. Way too much oil and the porcini mushrooms were quite tasteless, gritty, and kind of slimey. The pasta in the other dish was claggy and the mushrooms were the same as the other dish. Overall it was just so disappointing, and not helped by the standard of the drink my wife ordered. She asked for a spritz but it was so watered down there wasn't any taste, and I don't think there was really any aperol even in it. The beer wasn't much better and seemed very weak. The worst thing about it was the price. We used The Fork to get a 50% discount and our meal still came to around €47!! It seems as though the prices have been increased to cover the discount being offered. To think that they were valuing this meal at around €80 is a joke! We've had outstanding meals in Italy for that kind of price and certainly a lot better meals for under €50. Sorry, long review but I wanted to cover all the disappointing parts of...

Beautifully decorated the ambience is just charming. Then you get to the menu which is pages and pages of options and if you branch out just a little bit, you can get some incredibly unique flavors. We’ve been in Italy for a week and a half and we have had nothing that tasted anything like what we ordered Today. We had deer cooked in a blueberry sauce, served with polenta and taglia in a duck Ragu and Torelli with wild boar. Also, we had polenta with truffle and a pastrami and mustard for hors d’oeuvres. Just excellent all the way around and so refreshing to have something that is so different. Be warned there is no English menu which to me is a good sign for authentic food, but it took us about 20 minutes on Google translate to figure out what to order. Just talked to an Italian woman who says she eats here each time she comes to Lucca because it’s like walking into her grandmothers house. The food is like home made ands so amazing!! That’s from a...

Stepping into this osteria feels like visiting the living room of an eccentric collector - lively, and brimming with quirky objects that defy all aesthetic logic. The décor seems eager to tell a thousand stories, perhaps too many.

The staff adds a theatrical touch to the ambiance: two waitresses without uniforms - a bohemian twist, perhaps? - and a third comfortably seated in the back, busy with accounting, presumably to make sense of the rather steep menu prices.

As for the food, the menu boasts an abundance of Tuscan specialties, so extensive it feels like a culinary encyclopedia. If nothing else, it’s impossible not to find something to whet your appetite. Portions are generous - a plus for anyone who likes to leave a restaurant feeling full - and while the quality isn’t flawless, it’s still enjoyable except for the subpar dessert.

The service could be described as rustic, which is a polite way of saying casual and a...