Osteria Mangia e Bevi — Restaurant in Palermo

This is by far the worst restaurant I've been to for as long as I can recall, in any country. We couldn't get a reservation where we wanted to go, and our hotel recommended this place and got us one here last minute. That became an issue because they must've miscommunicated, and it took several conversations and phone calls before the restaurant would seat us. The worst part of the experience was the food, as nothing had any flavor or even seasoning. The octopus salad was bland but at least edible, unlike the mushroom salad that was simply dry iceberg lettuce with dry slices of mushrooms and a little cheese on top. There was no dressing, which would have been okay if the table had olive oil and vinegar, but all we had was oil. The eggplant appetizer was alright. The wine selection was house only and served in increments of 0.25, 0.5 and 1 L. On our way out I saw them dispensing it from a box. We ordered the dishes above and were planning to order more, but our server didn't return for at least an hour. The portions were small and yet we didn't finish them, so we were still hungry. At this point I wanted to cut our losses and leave, but it's very hard to get a table anywhere in Palermo on a Saturday night without a reservation due to COVID restrictions, so we eventually ordered the pasta with anchovies since we figured they couldn't mess that up too badly, and nothing else on the menu sounded appealing either. It was tolerable but not memorable. Somehow this place was very busy, for what reason I cannot fathom, but I would've rather bought some bread and cheese and eaten in our hotel room than...

I work professionally as a chef in London, and visited this restaurant based on two recommendations. Despite this, my partner and I counted six things wrong with the meal. We didn’t go in expecting fine dining, however this wasn’t better than the standard Wednesday night at your local Pizza Express - worse in fact.

The waiters and manager were unfriendly and passive aggressive. Yeah tourists can be annoying, but it’s no reason to treat people with such bad attitude.

We ordered still water and we’re given sparkling

We ordered a salad with tomatoes, melon, green beans and mint. We were given a bowl of pineapple and tomatoes? This we found quite funny, however this might not have been had one of us had an allergy.

The bread was stale - very stale. I wouldn’t ordinarily mind if it was complementary, however when you have to pay without having asked for stale bread it’s a bit of a niggle.

The crockery was chipped. It’s dangerous to serve food on chipped crockery, such a well established restaurant should know better.

Our mains. My partner ordered the fried pasta dish which the restaurant is well known for. It was burnt not fried and left an aftertaste of burnt, and was otherwise bland. My dish, Nero de seppia, also nothing special.

We’re not normally those who leave reviews unless things are particularly good, but as the waiters were so unfriendly we felt unable to give our feedback in person in order for it to be constructive. We were left with more than just a bad taste...

Horrible experience!!! Horrible service, bad food . DO NOT RECOMMEND!

Food was bad and definitely not fresh! We were in three and the order never arrived until we requested twice, two separate waiters to let us know if the food will arrive anytime soon as it has passed 1 hour or more. We were told that they did not have some ingredients for the appetizer and we agreed to have whatever they had. However, the bad part starts when finally the main dishes ( two of them) arrived and they had decided to switch the potato for some old lettuce without even consulting with us.

We noticed it immediately and called the writer. The answer was: we don’t have anymore potato. So we asked why did they decide to bring the dish as they did almost an hour and half later before consulting with us and the answer was: because the cook did not let us know.

So we asked then what else can they give instead since we don’t want this old lettuce and practically half of our dish is missing. They offered a fennel, which is ridiculous.

Not only did they not offer anything or apologize but they were even upset and arrogant claiming that they gave us salad, and by that they mean some old lettuce that no one can or should eat. It ruined our evening.

I have not seen such behavior or service in my many years of traveling and will not recommend anyone...