Trattoria da Giulio in pelleria — Restaurant in Lucca

As avid travelers, we have been to 50 countries and many restaurants. We do a YouTube channel and share our experiences and expenses. We were doing a video about.Lucca and we’re having a pleasant day, and came to this restaurant on the recommendation of a Viewer. Since this was more or less a local recommendation, we had intended to incorporate our meal into a video and came with reasonable expectations. We have to say, we will not be putting this restaurant into our channel‘s videos, because we don’t want to have a negative experience impact somebody’s thoughts about this city. The city was fantastic, but this restaurant was a complete disaster. The chicken was tough as shoe leather, the grilled vegetables were mush, and the baked cod was too salty to eat. We left more than half the food uneaten. Seeing how not one out of three dishes would be considered edible it was a consistent fail. I informed the waitress that the food was horrible, she was very defensive and very rude, so I cannot comment positively on the service, which up to that point was acceptable. My wife and I have very different taste and for us to both believe the food was amongst the worst we’ve had in Europe says a lot. If you go, you have been warned, there are so many restaurants that looked so appetizing that we passed on our way to this restaurant that we should’ve stopped at first. We always use euros in our credit card transactions however the waitress chose US dollar before I noticed so we will get the worse exchange rate for the meal. Not worth five euros much...

I see a lot of positive reviews for this location, I am puzzled... I guess if you are old, cannot see well, and need a restaurant that is so brightly lit that there is no ambience whatsoever, this is your place? We arrived with a reservation early in the evening. The place looks charming from the outside, but, when you open the door and walk in, it looks like a Denny’s in the United States! Don’t get me wrong, I think the food at Denny’s is extremely consistent and good from location to location? What I’m getting at is the lights were so incredibly bright there was no ambience whatsoever ? We asked to sit in a particular place that perhaps wouldn’t have been so bright. We were there early, and the restaurant was relatively empty. The people there were so unaccommodating it was mind-boggling. There is another room in the back that was even brighter, and it was incredibly hot back there. In any other restaurant in the world the table that we requested, they would’ve sat us there. These people absolutely positively could’ve cared less and said no. They tried to put us in a table telling us it was the only one available. A table that no one should be sitting at because there is no way there should be a table in that location of the restaurant. We walked out, shaking our heads, walked back to the neighborhood we were staying in and found a fabulous restaurant. Ciacco Plazza Napoleone.. That restaurant I would highly recommend. This restaurant, I would highly recommend that you go to any other...

After seeing this restaurant on multiple blogs we thought it seemed the best bet for authentic cuisine. Now I guess it depends what you’re used to eating, we are from Melbourne with beautiful food and have certainly consumed our share of Italian at home and in Italy.

Bluntly this place was rubbish.

Took about 40 minutes for 2 pastas and a salad to come out. The gnocchi was mushy and slimy. The ravioli was heavy with unseasoned meat inside but the meat sauce made up for the lack of seasoning by having a kilo of salt added to it. If we didn’t have a (very standard) salad to break it up, it would have been almost inedible. We both had sore stomachs later, can’t be sure if this was the food or the wine.

Service atrocious around. Waiter didn’t provide breads and when questioned we were advised it was our issue for not reminding him. Lady at counter was a gremlin and awful to deal with.

It definitely wasn’t ‘cheap’ as described, in fact quite the opposite for the food quality. We had a cheaper much superior meal at Cinque Terre.....