Osteria Pane e Alivi — Restaurant in Palermo

Not good from the get-go. For starters, the waitress acted as though she wished we were not there. I'd read that it was a local's place. Maybe that was why. That being said, we did not experience the same degree of service from wait staff at other local trattoria that we went to in Palermo. The menu was online and limited. We ordered a mixed antipasta plate for a starter. The sardine rolls were dry and not flavorful, unlike others that we ate in many other restaurants around Sicily and in Palermo. The seafood portion of the antipasta appeared as if they'd been sitting out for a while. We ate them, but they were not fresh. The kids asked if the restaurant had aglio olio pasta, and the waitress said yes. We were brought two bowls of plain pasta and a bottle of olive oil to put on the noodles to make it aglio olio, I assume. The sea urchin pasta had a weird metalic taste to it. We'd eaten it at least 3 other times in different trattoria around Palermo and never tasted anything like that. After the experience with the antipasta, we decided to pass on eating the sea urchin pasta out of fear of getting sick because we were worried it wasn't fresh. I'll eat just about anything, and I hate wasting food, but I was not going to roll the dice on that. When the waitress noticed that we weren't eating it, she asked if there was something wrong with it. When we explained the above to her, she just looked annoyed. The one bright spot about the meal was the daily special pasta we ordered. That was really good. This may be a really good Osteria, but if given a second chance to see, I'd pass and go eat at the Fridda pizza place down the street or the trattoria around the corner. Based on the reviews, we'd really hoped for a great dining experience. It was an experience, but not the one we'd hoped for. Plus, it was twice the price of other places that had much...

I booked a table and arrived on time but was then steadfastly ignored for the next twenty minutes. Finally, I beckoned over one of two waitresses and pointed out that I was waiting to order. She said that only one person in the restaurant, an older woman, could take orders and she was busy. I told her that I was waiting five minutes more, then I was leaving. Four and a half minutes later the only woman in the restaurant who could take orders arrived. She didn't apologize for the delay. Her manner was curt, as if she was aggrieved at having to attend to me. I placed my order. After that no-one spoke to me again but when a party of Italians arrived she greeted them warmly and took their order instantly. My main course arrived after eighty minutes. To be fair, it, and the starter which preceded it, were very good. But by then my evening had been spoiled. I'm always polite. I try to speak Italian. I don't act superior. So I don't think I deserve this treatment and I certainly don't appreciate it. Consequently, I would not recommend this...

DISAPPOINTED EXPERIENCE for three key reasons:

The waitress recommended a different pasta dish since the one we had chosen wasn’t available (16€), without telling us the portion size or the price (€60). We trusted her suggestion, thinking it would be something similar.

When we accepted the suggested dish, we would have appreciated being told that it was already enough for two people and that we didn’t need to order a second dish.

Instead, they took the full order, and when we later asked to cancel the second, they said it had already been cooked and gave it to us to take away, without offering any alternative.

Among all the uncomfortable aspects, the waitress even told other customers that “we didn’t want to pay for what we had eaten,” 😡when in fact - SHE SIMPLY HADN’T DONE HER JOB PROPERLY- not informing us about the price or the portion size.

It’s not about the money — we know lobster is expensive — it’s about transparency and fair treatment.

THEY...