Ristorante Celide — Restaurant in Lucca

I had dinner for 1. When I arrived, I was quickly seated, although I was left waiting for a long time. After that, I ordered a glass of red wine, which unfortunately came with 5 FLIES INSIDE, one of which I accidentally swallowed. When I asked for a replacement, a new glass was served, this time with only ONE FLY. The second replacement had no flies inside, as the bottle was opened at the table. I ordered a sea bass cooked in a mound of salt. It was very good, being cooked to a perfect temperature. Side veggies were excellent, although the overall dish was a bit empty. I didn't order dessert, but they surprised me with a lemon sorbet, which was delicious. Could have been a fantastic meal, spoiled only by the FLIES. Note that the restaurant was quite infested, with tiny, small, medium and large flies making frequent appearances during my meal...

The food was pretty awful. We ordered the large crudo platter, expecting a tasty treat of seafood and shellfish. Everything was raw, even the prawns, which is fine if it's tasty but this was bland. The first course of garlic spaghetti was drenched in garlic to the point where my wife burnt her mouth after one fork full and couldn't eat any more. My codfish was bland even with plenty of seasoning. The service was excellent, however and our waiter did not charge us for the uneaten spaghetti meal. Four stars for service, one for food as the amuse bouche and lemon sorbet...

We arrived in Lucca for our stay and could not check in to our VRBO and we were hungry. We stopped into this restaurant and saw it was busy but the host sat us on the terrace which was great. The food was excellent. The fish was done to perfection and the portions were very good. The staff could not have been nicer or more helpful! We also noticed many local folks having lunch and to us this was a sign of how good this restaurant is. It is near the walled city and parking was not a problem for us. Dine...