Il Ristorante - Niko Romito — Restaurant in Milan

After a two week vacation where we ate in approximately 12 high-end, mostly Michelin-starred restaurants in Europe, we ate here last Friday night. Despite the obvious attempt at opulence, this restaurant was the worst I've encountered in a long time, and certainly on this trip to Europe. The food was inedible, the service was horrible, and even the decor--i.e., the lighting--was badly done.

We were seated by a kind but inexperienced hostess, who passed us off to a busser of some kind. He pulled out chairs for the women but then did not push them in. He then left the table for at least 10 minutes. When he returned, I asked if he was our server, and he said yes. At this point, one of our party was sitting underneath an unduly bright, unflattering halogen light, and we had been joking that he was on stage, or in the spotlight. We asked the "server" if it would be possible to dim the light. He said he didn't know, and that he would ask. He returned and said there was no way to dim the light. He did not offer other solutions, such as reseating us or moving the table to a different position. He departed without taking drink orders or asking us if we needed anything. We ended up sliding the table out from the wall ourselves (!!), which improved the situation only slightly. I'm just glad I wasn't the one under that light!

We were finally able to order wine and food. There was much confusion about the size of the dishes, which the "server" was unable to answer questions about. Then the servers switched, and we had a new person. We were served two huge loaves sourdough bread, which looked and tasted like "bake your own" San Francisco-style boules. We also got sesame crisps, which were not salted, but were nonetheless edible--a win! These were basically all I was able to eat for the entire meal.

Pasta courses were served. I ordered a lobster linguine. It was disgusting. The pasta, rather than being al dente, was gushy on the outside and hard in the middle, as if it had been soaked in not-quite-boiling water. The sauce seemed to have been thickened with corn starch, as it was gelatinous and had little flavor. There were a few small chunks of lobster, which were rendered inedible because of the gooey, bland sauce.

My friend got the sea urchin pasta. She was startled when she bit into it, but being polite, said said only that it was "extremely strong". I tried it and almost spit it out. It tasted like the rotting seashore. We had just eaten delicious, fresh sea urchin a few nights before, so the problem was not our taste buds. Her pasta also had the mushy-hard texture, and the same gelatinous sauce. The only addition to hers was the rotting fish flavor.

Although my other friends had ordered the sea bream which was supposed to serve 2-3 people (I think it was 140 Euros), and was presented in a huge copper pan, each was served only about 4 oz of bony fish. They were left wondering where the rest of the fish went.

I got branzino, which tasted old and fishy, and had the same gelatious sauce covering it. I scraped off the sauce and managed to eat a few bites, because I thought I needed some protein. Canned tuna would have been preferable. Then I went back to the crackers and wine.

I was hoping the dessert would do something to redeem the restaurant, but it did not. I got old-tasting, undersweetened gelato, which left me almost in tears with disappointment.

The bathroom was confusingly down an elevator and up some steps (always fun), and the hostess bungled getting us coats--we had to do it ourselves.

Overall, please save yourself the pain (and 400 plus Euros) and avoid this place.

BTW, we ate at Paper Moon the next night--delicious food and a perfect experience. Go...

On 21/01/2023 Saturday evening me and my friend visited Niko Romito restaurant at Bulgari Hotel Milano where unfortunately a bad customer service experience tainted the whole evening. Everything was fine until the bill came. The server couldn’t get our credit cards go through Apple Pay, and she didn't seem to know why. She had a bad attitude and said that she was happily going to take care of the situation. We had absolutely no problem with our bank accounts since all our payments during the trip in Milan were done by using Apple Pay. Unfortunately for us, we had left our wallets at the hotel because we intended to continue our night and didn't want to carry them around. Afterwards we were asked to go to the reception of the hotel where the problem persisted. After that the manager who had been observing, stepped in. The restaurant was empty and we were literally the only ones left waiting for a solution to be found. She didn't apologise and didn't accept a bank transfer on the spot, which I suggested as a quick solution. Instead she told me that one of the two should stay at the restaurant and the other should take a taxi to the hotel and return with cash. What kind of manager would ask something like that? I immediately refused because something like that would mean I would have to pay for the taxi which would cost for a problem that was clearly theirs. I asked the hotel to make a transfer for me, so I would be happy to go and bring the cash. She didn't accept that either. They left us waiting for almost another hour at the table without giving us any solution to the problem. The situation had really become very uncomfortable and it had already ruined the whole night for us since it was getting very late. The manager appeared at the end with fifty Euros in her hand telling us that she would take a taxi and come with us to our hotel to collect the cash. And so it happened, we left all together, we went to our hotel room with the taxi, I dropped her the cash and she left. The issue had been resolved. It was truly one of the worst and most unpleasant experiences I have ever encountered. Of course, we were not in the mood to continue our night after we waited for 3 hours while they had us trapped in the restaurant waiting for them to find a solution to their problem. It was obvious to me that the restaurant did not accept Apple Pay from the beginning since their machines were quite outdated and we had noticed during the dinner that another table faced the same problem, which the manager did not admit. If you want to consider yourself one of the top end restaurants you should also have professional and experienced people to service your guests respectfully whatever the problem is. The way the problem was dealt was unacceptable. The food was satisfying but my experience won't allow me to visit Romito...

This is one of the worst restaurants I have ever been to on my entire life. From food to service to management where would I start from? As soon as we arrived, the waited for the waitress to take our order for more than 25 minutes. Then 20 minutes after order was taken, the waitress came again and asked what was out order because she forgot! After a long wait we received our starters which were inedible at all. We were hoping that the main dishes (which we never received) will make it up. We waited for 1 and half hour and we kept asking the waitress and every time she replies “2 minutes”.

The manager, despite all the above being said, didnt bother coming and apologizing. Not to mention when we said we had enough and we ordered the check from the manager personally, he replied with an attitude which showed that he doesn't care about what happened.

Our experience with the manager explained a lot about the mess happening at this restaurant which is a shame to be at a well known luxury hotel...