Risto bar Il Quadrifoglio — Restaurant in Maiori

TLDR: Disappointing, bland food, terrible service, horrible experience. Keep looking elsewhere. Note: as of this writing they have a 2.5 euro coperto (table service charge). We settled on this place over the other highly recommended 4 star options including Masaniello right next door due to this place seemingly having more of a variety of options for the kids. Big mistake. The seating is limited so they weren't able to accommodate our group of 11 to sit together but we were happy to get our kids seated first while we waited for a table to open up. When another nearby table of 6 freed up next to the table of 5 where they sat our kids we politely asked if it could be joined with our kid's table but they insisted it was not possible. Not a big deal to me as I prefer not to eat with the group of kids (a reason for the 2 stars instead of 1) but it made my wife and her family sad to be separated so it it was still a disappointment. So we were split up which wasn't a big deal until later. Of course, this is a touristy restaurant with the host coming out to invite us to dine with them so you know you're going to get unauthentic high-priced mediocre food but was expecting a basic standard of service and food quality. We were attracted by their seafood, salad, and pasta options and 4.5 star reviews but based on our experience, do not go here for the seafood, or the burgers, or the salad, or the pasta. We should have just went to the restaurant next door. We were seated a half hour after our kids which also wasn't too bad but it's what came once we were seated that was the biggest regret. A nearly 3 hour ordeal with our food held hostage. We had the mixed marinated seafood (NOT Ceviche, btw), Caesar salad, Amalfi salad, Seafood pasta, and Mixed fried seafood (NOT a fried seafood basket). Americans, this is not what you might be used to as seafood. The marinated seafood antipasti was decent but do not expect ceviche. It had 4 thin slices of mackerel, thin lox style salmon, and shredded octopus/squid. It was pretty good hence, the 2 stars. However, once we were done, we waited another 2 hours for our main dishes to arrive. Throughout that time, they catered to an even larger party of 15 that arrived 20 minutes after we had ordered and had no problem rearranging the tables to seat them together. We sat and waited for our main course long after our appetizer plates had been taken away and watched as the table of 15 received their appetizers, main course, frequent attendance to refill their drinks and desert. That table was definitely getting good service so I hate to knock the service but for us it was just non-existent. We had to flag down our waiters several times over those 2 hours when our food would be coming with the only replies being "soon" or "it's coming" despite ordering before the other party. They had no explanation why it was taking so long. Finally at the 2.5 hour mark yet still hungry we asked for the check and to cancel our 2nd course order which they protested and declined our request and then brought out our food. We should have just refused it and paid what we owed but we were really hungry still. The seafood pasta was bland and had a mix of boiled and dried out pan fried (not breaded) whole shrimp. The mixed fried seafood was such a disappointment. The thin breaded fried rings of squid were the best part but couldn't make up for the rest. The pan fried whole shrimp looked great and were well seasoned on the shell but once you pulled their head and shells off any seasoning they had came off with the head and shells leaving dried-out, bland shrimp meat. This may be how it is eaten here but it was not enjoyable to eat. The kids said that their burger had no flavor and was hard to eat. The Caesar and Amalfi salads were not good either with wilted lettuce, whole bits of inedible orange and lemon slices with the peels still attached and citron salad dressing with no detectable flavor. Avoid this place; avoid any place with less than 1000 reviews...

Probably one of the worst meals we have ever had. We did not have great luck along the coast for good tasting, authentic Italian food so we decided to try a burger. 1 burger had bacon that was not cooked at all, while my whole burger was not cooked at all. While we were both deconstructing our burgers, the manager passed by on multiple occasions and never bothered asking if every thing was alright (despite seeing us pick apart the burgers). In fact, the only time he did check in was when we were paying the bill and figuring out cash between the 4 of us. The manager couldn’t get too our table fast enough and proceeded to try to jump in on multiple occasions when he thought we were finished with the cheque (mind you this was not our server). Did he ask how anything was at this point? Definitely not, and proceeded just to take the cheque and say thanks. This was not even mentioning the horrible pizza with completely unsalted dough, or the tiny sandwich. Please avoid, they couldn’t care less about the food, or your experience and just want your money.

Edit: I’ll add this following the response from the owner.

We (my finance and I), finished the pizza as we had no other food since my burger was undercooked. We also had to leave for a flight in Rome at 10am the following day, so we didn’t exactly want to wait for a whole new pizza or burger when the first ones were so poorly done. We have loved every single pizza we have had in Italy, besides this one. One of my favourite pizzas ever we actually had in Naples a couple days prior.

The reason we didn’t complain to a server is because a server never came to our table to ask how things were, until we asked for our bill at the end of the meal. Again, you’re the manager, you saw us picking apart burgers on multiple occasions, you had multiple opportunities yourself to come over and ask, but you chose not too.

We are not saying that all food along the coast is bad, we just didn’t have luck as I mentioned in my review. Almafi is a touristy city so you’re going to find restaurants that are not great and we just happened to find the ones that weren’t our trip. We loved our food in Rome and Tuscany and again, had one of our best meals ever while in Tuscany. I’m sure almafi has great food, we just didn’t find them for the 3 restaurants we went to.

I have never left a negative review for a restaurant, and I was not going to this time. What prompted me to write one was the managers behaviour at the end of the night. To only come over, and legitimately hover over our table when we had money out, was sad. We haven’t had any experiences like this in Italy during our two week stay. Most restaurants and staff have been lovely to deal with, even if we didn’t like the meal.

I have no idea what the manger is talking about with the guy coming back multiple times, maybe it’s a google translation issue. If you’re just saying that you had a repeat customer….congrats…I guess? Still doesn’t change the fact we had a bad one.

Good job not mentioning the burger (that was the primary complaint in my review), or your behaviour at the end in your response. I hope whoever goes here has a great meal, maybe we just came at a bad day, but something I can’t excuse is the...

Edit: 1. A place that attracts tourists should know how to reply in English and should generally be able to hold a conversation in English and provide clear information 2. Yesterday I was told you are not opening until the next day at 6, not that it will open at 6 pm. 3. The customer was waiting for the bill to be made, I was not speaking about kicking people out, but serving them in due time. So this is clearly towards other customers as well, not only towards me 4. How comes you can reply to my review in 28 min, but can't have a table ready in the same amount of time? If the chair would have been on the fire exit route, you should have communicated to me, and I would have understood. It's all about communication, and you clearly have issues with that - you have managed to show your true face to the other customers reading your reply.

Although I have not eaten here, you truly deserve your 1 star review - shame on you and the way you replied to me in your little comment below.

Very disappointed with their customer service - don't trust the Google reviews below at all!! I would avoid at all costs! We went there during their working hours - the tables were set as if open, but we were sent away with little/no explanation. We came back today, found a table for 2 in the shadows, and kindly asked to get another chair (as we were a group of 3) - we were rejected, and asked to sit at a table in the sun or wait for another table to become free. We waited, but they made no effort to process the payment from the leaving party in an efficient manner. Having 3 seats in the shadows was super easy to fix (either bringing the umbrella closer to the seats in the sun or adding another seat to the table of 2). They clearly showed no interest to help us - please avoid this place!!!!...