Bar Giò 5 Terre — Restaurant in Monterosso al Mare

On our first night in Monterosso we came across this little spot which was off the walkway and had a beautiful view of the sea. We looked at the menu and the food sounded good and reasonably priced. It took about 10 min for the server to even give us menus, another 10 minutes before I flagged another waitress down to let her know we were ready. I ordered the seafood spaghetti, my husband had the spaghetti with bologese and we each ordered a Greek salad. I had to ask the server to bring us bread and to our surprise when we received it instead it was like rolls from Sam's/Costco , dry and hard. We did finally receive our food and we were not pleased! We are not food snobs, but after eating in Italy for the 3 previous days , expectations were high. The seafood had to have been frozen, and the pasta was from a box! Not once did the server ever come to check on us. We ate the pasta, waited on the salads and they never came. When we asked if we could just cancel the salads at that point the server seemed upset and stormed off. We didn't know we had to pay inside until we overheard anothet server tell a table to pay inside. There were two Italian women behind the bar whom I assumed owned the place. They didn't ask how the meal was, but instead said something in Italian to one another and smacked the receipt on the counter very rudely.

Don't waste your time...

Travelers Beware I’m normally not one to leave a review on anything, however after backpacking through Europe I’ve found other reviews extremely helpful and would love to help others prevent an experience like mine. During my second visit at this place, the first one was mediocre but due to the convenient location of the shop we decided to go a second time, we were kicked out by a white haired elderly lady. My friends and I purchased 35 euro worth of pastries and coffee prior to our train departure so we ordered it for “take-away”. After receiving our food we had a couple minutes to spare and decided to sit in the completely vacant seating area of the coffee shop. I’d say I was maybe 2 bites into my food when the lady walked over to our table and stated “you order for take away, you need to take away” making a motion with her hands to stand up and get out. My friends and I, who were polite the entire time were in great disbelief. Before I could say anything the lady turned around and started smiling and laughing with the staff. I’ve loved Italy but the service and lack of respect from natives has been disheartening. We have remained respectful and optimistic throughout our endeavors but this one was hard. If you have the option to go elsewhere… trust you will receive...

Place had mixed reviews on google and yelp but we decided to take the risk and come because we saw calamari walking by and it looked good. However, given the service or lack thereof, it was not worth it. Waitress was rude to table next to us and took forever to serve them. We were almost done with our calamari when they finally got their food and they sat when we did. Th waitress wouldn’t give us marinara sauce with our calamari because “that’s not how Italians eat calamari.” Additionally, customers two tables behind us had to yell to the waitress who wanted payment for the food but the customer’s husband and kids were in the bathroom and the husband had the money. While our calamari was great and fresh, it was just as fresh as other Italian restaurants in the area. Not...