Vanilla Gelati Italiani — Restaurant in Milan

The gelato itself was nice but the whole experience was ruined by a rude member of staff. The process of ordering was different to what we expected (they want you to pay before ordering your gelato, but didn’t see any signage for this), so after queuing twice we were eventually seen by a member of staff who was talking and giggling to other members of staff whilst we were stood infront of her and if I’m honest it did seem that she was talking about me and my boyfriend. When it came to my order she reluctantly scooped my gelato and then turned her back to me to carry on speaking to other staff and eventually turned back rolling her eyes and then dramatically stuck a spoon in (with the attitude of a stroppy child) before turning her head away from me again and sticking her hand behind her onto the side for me to retrieve my order from her hand. It was actually comical how this woman behaved and I was in shock that she was that offended by my presence that she felt the need to act in this way. I myself work in customer service and it is really not that difficult to treat customers with basic respect (the bare minimum). I’ll also add that this worker had several buttons undone on her shirt which made her stick out as unprofessional compared to the other workers and she had long acrylic nails whilst handling food. From reading other reviews for this Gelateria I feel even more justified in my opinion, given how the owner responds so childishly and unprofessionally to genuine reviews. It is a real shame given the great location and quality...

Dear Management,

I am writing to address the unacceptable behavior of one of your waiters.

We ordered three large ice creams to go. My husband and I were standing in line to pick them up, and my mother, an elderly lady, took a seat in an empty hall while waiting for us. A waiter (a young, dark-skinned, slim man) approached her immediately and started talking to her. Since she doesn't speak foreign languages, she couldn't respond. I came over and asked him to let her sit for a minute while we waited for our ice creams. He said it was impossible because there are rules, and the seats are for people who order from the menu. He was extremely rude and refused to listen when I explained that we would leave immediately after my husband returned with our ice creams. He refused to give his name and did not have a name badge.

We felt very poorly treated. The hall was basically empty, and it seemed unnecessarily arrogant to treat us as if we had broken some extremely important rule. This is not how customers should be treated. I would not expect such arrogance and poor manners in Italy because earlier I heard only about great hospitality of this country. Our experience was absolutely opposite.

I reported the incident to his colleague, a young woman at the cash register, and she immediately apologized. She was very friendly and sympathetic.

I ask the management of the ice cream shop to address the terrible behavior of this worker, who clearly has no understanding of good manners and...

We have visited this place with my daughter around 11p.m. There are almost no visitors sitting on tables, belongs to this gelateria, only one pair of oldies. We have been tired so much, bought per cup of ice cream and set to taste it. In a second guy arrived and said that it is place not for us and we have to go out...."You took ice cream "to go" and you cannot seat here.....sorry... good buy!". We have been shocked by this action, because practically all tables was free and no visitors, just we are.... We didn't plan to seat for an hours..... just couple of minutes to rest and eat ice cream! If we are even breaking your "clever" rules, you could see with understanding and allow us seat for a 3 minutes.... Very strange! Sure, I will never visit this place again and advice other people to avoid it. May be this gelateria doesn't care about their customers due to great stream of tourists, who will never return, otherwise this place became bankroped very soon. Quality of the ice cream is very poor. Definately you can find much better quality ice cream anywhere in Italy(a bit far from the touristic downtown) and cheaper as well. What is also funny, that the bottom of any cup has big empty space just to fill less ice cream and create illusion of big portion))) Very nice...