Ristorante Il Giardinetto — Restaurant in Mandello del Lario

"Merlot is a red wine" - I know, I ordered it.

The service was condescending which let down reasonably pleasant food. We endured a rather uncomfortable dining experience and left feeling disappointed.

We chose to eat at this restaurant because of it's positive reviews and recent Michelin recommendation. But this experience goes to show, these indicators are not infallible.

The positives include, a good wine selection and a kitchen that was interested in getting the details right.

This was unfortunately outweighed by a condescending waiter, who made us feel unwelcome from the start. Once he agreed to seat us, he was slow to take our order in a quiet dining room (6/7 covers). The restaurant seems to be aiming for a fine dining experience, this is undermined by things like an online menu and no option but to pay at the bar as you leave. We were not presented with a bill prior to paying and had to review our receipt instead. There seemed to be some reluctance to let us order a handful of dishes from the al la carte menu, we'd suggest mandating a tasting menu if they have a preference for how guest should dine. Menu was also on the pricey side.

Overall this place seems to be having a bit of an identity crisis, whilst the kitchen is trying to make up for their overall...

The diner at this place was a total disaster and disappointment. Everything went wrong from The start. The service was awful. Usually we are easy going and positive people but the waiters at this restaurant (despite only two people) acted like we owned them Something, were unfriendly, did not look into eyes while talking which is quite annoying and unprofessional. First of all, one of them could Not see the reservation of ours in his book Which was the first one on the list, then he did not invite us to the table when he brought the compliment from the kitchen. The other lady acted and talked if she is about to fall down, hopefully she just had a bad day. The guys also brought an aperol instead of hugo spritz, ok, but when we wanted to order a glass of champagne from the wine by glasses section, they told us that we can have only if we order three. Like what was that? And as final note - a piece of a plastic was in the meat (pork cheeks) and nobody even apologised for that. We would Never return, would never recommend and it was the worst dining experience of ours at Lake Como which we visited...

Beautiful location on the lake with amazing view. Overpriced food for the portions they serve, average food for my taste. Service was definitely below expectation. Different servers were serving us so it made the organization difficult in my option. One of the servers poured the wrong wine into my almost full glass, we explained that so he took my glass away and didn’t replace it and didn’t return to our table. After explaining that to another server, I got another glass of the right wine but got charged for both! As we were leaving, we explained why we weren’t happy so they offered to refund us for the wine but I just wanted to get out of there, not the most friendly or organized service. My husband is Italian so there was no miscommunication but personally don’t recommend...