Aja Mola - Trattoria di mare — Restaurant in Palermo

Worst experience in Palermo!

Booked for terrazzo and their terrazzo is right by the street where bikes pass every 5 sec with the loudest sound ever but that wasn't our main issue .

First they push you to order wine ! Eventho we said water is fine (keep in mind they charge you already an extra 3 euro for cover charge which they don't even have a table cloth on the tables so basically that 3 euro is for you sitting on your chair at your table , and a waiter come to you and serve you ! very kind of them and not at all scam.

My wine was not even one third of my glass and it was white wine which they should have served at least half of the glass! And from a bottle opened probably 5 days ago . The owner responds that we could have refused but the waiter forcefully talks to you in a way that you gotta accept what is poured in your glass and he puts you in a situation of shame!!!

Second , I ordered the fried fish mixed. It comes with shrimps all uncleaned and with black poop inside them (clearly too lazy to clean then before frying ) I complained to the waiter after trying one of them and the whole dish was untouched when returned yet they said that's how a fried shrimp is in italy ( they don't botter to clean the black poop inside the shrimp and I have to eat how they serve it OR I can order a raw one instead !!! ( so the raw shrimp apparently don't have poop inside by their Italian logic ) and what a great alternative ! If I wanted raw fish then why I order fried?!

I said we will close the bill now for what we consumed and cancel that order ( which was 2 glass of "forced " wine , bottle of water , 2 portions of oyster and a ravioli )

They charge the returned plate at the end and for all that we had they charged us 52 euro . We were too worn out and tired to fight for the bill too so we paid and left.

(The owner responded that it was taken out yet they have charged us way more than what we ordered)

It's not right to stay in a business by being a complete fraud towards travellers.

Avoid completely if you like your wallet and your money. Total tourist trap and " italian" scam. Furthermore you need to eat in another place later in an hour or so as their portions are...

I rarely feel compelled to write a review, let alone a poor one. But we tried to raise our concerns with the wait staff instead of resorting to writing a negative review but worse case scenario, they sarcastically, bordering on hostile even, responded with "that sucks, thanks for coming!", so...

Having worked in service industry for a long time, I have a lot of patience and compassion for those working in service, but the experience at this place was beyond horrendous.

We took the tasting menu and the food was quite mediocre to be honest. There wasn't a lot of finesse that went into the food, but sometimes that happens when you eat out, and I was totally happy to accept that it just wasn't my favorite meal ever. The food alone doesnt merit any kind if recognition really, neither good nor bad, however, after paying nearly $200 for abysmal service, the food better be so tight, and incredible in some way, but it was far from anything like that.

The real disappointment was the service though. Nary a warm greeting in the room, let alone eye contact or cordial engagement through the whole entire service. We even tried to engage with the waiter by being gregariously polite to try and soften him so we could build some sort of rapport with him, but it's an impossible feat when you arent bequested a smidge of time or eye contact.

Secondly, we opted for their five course tasting menu but were served only one glass of wine throughout the whole night; when we sat down and that's all. The sommelier never came back at all through the service to ask if we wanted another glass, nor did our waiter notice our wine and water glasses were empty half-way through the tasting menu service.

Like i said before, I don't like to leave bad reviews because like the owner has pointed out on several reviews already, "we are all human", but when we were met with arrogant hostility in trying to broach the subject at the cash, I'm realizing it's an all too common experience at this restaurant. We nearly spent $200 for the worst meal I've had in all of Italy! Being pickpocketed by a stranger would have left me feeling way more satisfied than paying for whatever we just...

Indifferent waiting staff who sat us up the back inside with some water then forgot about us. .They eventually came to take our order and we had to explain we still hadn’t been given menus. We were offered a glass of sparkling wine by way of apology but as I don’t like sparkling wine I got offered no alternative. Finally we got menus. This place is really fancy, pretentious fish dishes so be sure that’s what you really like. It was not for me but my companions were really excited about it so I picked linguine with clams and the lettuce/pear/goats cheese salad. Was told there was no goats cheese but took it anyway as I was starving. My companions ordered 3 oysters, fusilli, cucumber salad and fried squid. The Somalier came over to take our wine order. We asked for a catarratto but we’re recommended a catarratto/grillo mix. It was ok. Five plates arrived. My linguine was nothing special and my salad was something I could have made from Lidl cheaper and better. It was tasteless and we were still charged full price (Euro8) for it even though it had no goats cheese. Was told the cucumber salad, oysters and fusilli was good. No fried squid arrived. They cleared away our plates and offered us the dessert menu. Companion explained she was still waiting on squid and it became clear that they’d completely forgotten about it or the waiter in his indifference wasn’t paying attention. Companion said to leave it as she didn’t want to be eating it alone as the rest of us had finished. We looked at the dessert menu but we’re really hacked off by this time and the desserts were just as weird as the rest of the menu. There was even fish in two of the three options. Example ‘broad bean ice cream, carob whipped cream, mullet roe and pancake’. You really need to be adventurous with your seafood to appreciate this perhaps. I could call myself ignorant about the food but the bad waiting service did no help. Very disappointing. Bill included a cover charge too. It gets great reviews but I cannot...