CarloQuinto — Restaurant in Monopoli

Tourist trap - avoid! Nice sea view with outdoor seating, but watery drinks and incompetent staff. We (group of three) were visiting Monopoli, early evening, Tuesday, 27th July. As it was 36°C we were thirsty, so stopped here and ordered three cocktails. Service was OK, drinks were served quite fast, tasted good at first, but after two sips, just like iced water. Not a heavy drinker and more sensitive to the effects of alcohol than most, I noticed little or nothing after this drink, confirming what my tongue was telling me - my "cocktail" was 90% water and ice. Not caring about that, and because of the nice view and atmosphere, we decided to stay and ordered three coffees, nothing special, just three coffees. After 15 minutes, no sign of our coffee, place was not very busy, waiter still taking orders though. No problem, we thought, and asked another waiter for three coffees, informing him that we had already ordered three, but not had them, not wanting six coffees to arrive. He sounded concerned that we had not get our coffee yet and said he'd sort it. We relaxed and waited - ten minutes later, still no coffee, both waiters serving, no reaction to our glances and attempts to draw attention. Oh well, not to worry. I went inside to pay. Original waiter was standing, relaxing at the bar, chatting to the other waiter. When I asked to pay, he billed me 27-, for 3 cocktails and three coffees. When I politely reminded him that we never got our coffee, there was no surprise, no apology, no reaction at all. I paid 19,- for the three watery drinks and made a note to never visit this tourist-trap again. In all the cafes in Puglia that we visited, we never had to wait more than 5 minutes for a simple coffee. What a pity, how such a potentially great cafe can be ruined by lazy, incompetent and...

We had dinner at Carlo Quinto in Monopoli and were lucky to get a table with a stunning view directly overlooking the Adriatic Sea. The setting alone is worth a visit.

We encountered a small language barrier with our waiter – nothing major, but ordering simple drinks like Coke Zero and iced tea took a couple of tries, and we were served still water instead of the sparkling water we had ordered. That aside, the service was friendly and the food more than made up for it.

We shared two primi dishes: the Blue Crab risotto and the seafood carbonara – both were absolutely delicious and well worth trying. The seafood was fresh, the portions generous, and the flavors rich and well balanced.

Combined with the breathtaking sea view, this turned out to be a truly enjoyable dining experience. The only other thing to note is that the restaurant is right on a pedestrian street, so a lot of people pass by – it didn’t bother us, but some might find it a bit busy.

Rating: 4,5/5 ⭐ Would’ve been a perfect 5 if the ordering had been smoother and top.

We noticed a young female waitress who really had good control and took every phone call, she was not our waitress, but was still very observant and friendly....

READ THIS BEFORE YOU EAT HERE. Usually one can rate a restaurant based on how well they do the little things. Well this place doesn't do the little things or the big things well. From popping the cork (loudly) out of an expensive Italian bubbly with half the bottle ending on the floor (only explanation offered in shite English was "bottle travelled a long way, cork, boom" no economic recompense, the waiter actually thought it funny that he poured out half of our beverage); to the stale bread of yesterday in our bread basket, necessary because of the VERY meagerly adorned main dishes; which brings me to the CROWNING GLORY, which is the most tasteless, unseasoned, thoughtless, heartless, soulless food I have ever tasted in all of Italy. Maybe I've just been extremely lucky with the 50+ restaurants I've eaten at previously. But this was good for one thing and one thing only - the view. So buy a glass of bubbly, hope they don't spill half the bottle on the floor, and move on very quickly. Oh and a couple of dishes and 1.5 bottles...