Il Mannarino Navigli — Restaurant in Milan

visited this restaurant on September 21, 2025, after reading many good reviews and decided to give it a try. Food: The food was decent. I had the T-bone steak along with some sides. It was not particularly impressive, but acceptable. Service Issue: The real problem came from the service. I requested an outdoor table in the garden, where only one of nine tables was occupied. When I asked the staff (later I learned her name was Alyssa), she immediately said no tables were available without even checking. After insisting, she said all the others were reserved but still sat me at a table directly next to the only occupied one. It wasn’t smooth, but I accepted it. The bigger issue arose after I placed my order. When I returned to my table, the guests next to us were smoking. My wife and I don’t smoke and wanted to avoid disturbing them while also not being exposed ourselves. I politely asked Alyssa if we could move to another table. Instead of discreetly accommodating us, she walked straight over to them, pointed at me, and said, “The guy is complaining about your smoking.” This was both humiliating and completely unnecessary. To their credit, the guests were polite and stopped, but this was not at all how I expected the situation to be handled. I even asked to cancel my order at that point, but the request was refused because the food was already being prepared. A different male staff member later intervened and moved us to another table, which helped, but the damage had already been done. Management Response: The restaurant was far from full (only 5 out of 9 tables were occupied during my time there), so I am unsure why I was originally told that all tables were booked. I also spoke with the store manager about my experience, but his response was dismissive—he simply said, “Ok thank you. Nice to meet you.” It felt like a polite way of brushing me off rather than addressing the concern.

Overall, this was the only dining experience in Italy where I felt truly mistreated. I’ve visited many restaurants across the country over the years and never experienced such unprofessional service. I am sharing this review so that future guests can make an informed choice. For us, it unfortunately ruined what should have been a...

I hesitate to give this place a negative or harsh review, but our dinner tonight was unfortunately very poor.

We looked for quite a while to find a good local restaurant in Milan during our first night in the city, and were impressed by the overall rating and number of reviews.. Perhaps we caught them in an off night?

That said, our experience was mediocre. While the staff were quite friendly and accommodating, and the interior of the restaurant is beautiful, the format of the restaurant itself was confusing. We weren’t entirely sure what we were supposed to order when we arrived to the counter, and most everything was labeled only in Italian (I am a tourist, FWIW).. We ended up trying a large sampler of items at the recommendation of the staff, including appetizers, various meats, sides, a steak, and wine. The whole process, if I’m honest, felt a little like a tourist trap: I suppose I should have been more diligent in what I was ordering, but it felt like we were being talked into as many items as the staff could think of.

Unfortunately, the meal itself was for the most part poor. While the steak was wonderful, as well as the bottle of wine we ordered, more or less everything else was poor. The various small pork dishes we ordered were almost all drastically overcooked and surprisingly bland/flavorless, which was a real shame for a place calling itself a butchery. We just returned from central and southern Italy, and having eaten almost entirely pork for more than 2 weeks, the quality of the preparation was disappointing.

The price itself seems reasonable.. and again, the interior, as well as the staff, are a definite draw. But the meal itself was...

I always do reviews as much as possible when visiting and choosing a good place to dine.

The food was very good, 4.7/5, ambience 4.5/5, service 4/5.

At first, when we enter and asked for a table, Stephanie meet us and said "no table" for us but I have seen lots of vacant tables. I even asked, "even outside? And she said straight with only one word "no". As if she didn't want us because of the tone of her voice.

We went out and I searched on the website and booked a table from there. We went inside again after a few minutes and there we have table #5! The thing is, she didn't explain to us nor ask if we have a reservation. She simply said NO to us coldly without any explanation (not friendly at all).

We are tourists and we don't know the process of ordering. At least she could have explained to us a little on what to to. She only told us "table number 5" and we tried to look where table #5 ourselves. We didn't know that we were supposed to order our meat and other food first at the butcher/order taker behind the meat display before going to our table.

However, one of the servers, Susie, redeemed everything Stephanie did because she was very polite, friendly and attentive. Even threw jokes at us and we found her very accommodating. I know she was trying to make us comfortable. The butcher or the meat order taker was also very nice and friendly (forgot to ask his name).

Overall, we had a very good...