Ristorante Sottovento — Restaurant in Passignano sul Trasimeno

Hey Chef. Get a new staff. Your food is exceptional but your staff is AWFUL. Too bad. This restaurant needs to retrain the staff. Second time dining here. The first with local friends, a few months ago, who wanted us to dine with them there. At the table we spoke Italian French and English. I mention this because sometimes an English speaking client may get different attention. The food was very good but the service was terrible. This time taking out of town family from New York for a fine meal and to show off the beautiful lake we went again hoping the service was from an off night. After sunset we had a stroll and went to our 8pm reservation. We were shown our table in the side covered “indoor” space. The room was infested with swarming paper like flies. No way we said. Absolutely disgusting. They seated us inside. But from that point on the hostes was rude. We’re were a table of 5. We sat for 5 minutes and we’re asked what we wanted to order. “A few moments please”. Then 1/2 hour later after finally catching someone’s eye were were told they would take our order. We waited another 10 minutes before we were approached. One of use said they had a question on …. She, The server, interrupted twice assuming the question incorrectly. She seemed frustrated with us. Our order got too complicated for her. She dismissed all at the table but myself and I had to explain the order as well as the sequence of serving what to whom and when. Totally unprofessional and dismissing the other diners our guests was embarrassing. The rest of the waitstaff seemed to speak English very well. They should have accommodated the situation. But again they are poorly trained. The two young waiters avoid eye contact with the clients. They never looked anyone in the eye to see if anything was needed. No one asked if our food was to our liking etc . In fact we had to ask for wash clothes after eating the seafood tower. They were out of soft drinks (one of our party was 17 and not a wine drinker). We were ignored the whole evening needing to flag down staff, with difficulty, for our needs. The flys, by the way were, flying around our table to the point where we had to swat and kill them. I used a fish knife to scrape them off the white table cloth. The food you ask? Excellent. Would I go...

Good service and overall nice ambiance. The food was ok. Everything was fresh but some dishes were strange while others unexciting. Carpaccio of tuna with shaved fennel was tasteless. Needed to ask for soy sauce to give it some complexity. But the bizarre dish of the night was Astice alla Catalana. The lobster was live and fresh but boiled until overcooked, and served on a bed of....I don't know what you call it. A whacky combination of: tomatoes, potatoes, peaches, raspberries, strawberries, celery, raw peppers, carrot and zucchini (I am not kidding). The strangest combination and clash of flavors I have ever seen. The current chef needs to understand better how to complement flavors of the main ingredient, not shock and...

We went for dinner last night at the lake. The restaurant was quite busy and the location is beautiful right on the lakeside road. We sat in the covered terrace what was cool because of the breeze off the water.

Service was exceptional and attentive but not intrusive.

But it was the food that was the star! We all had a variety of appetizers ranging from mixed seafood salad, seafood antipasti, steamed mussels and clams and risotto. It was by far the BEST seafood I have had in a very long time. Every dish was prepared perfectly and had their own flavour. I can't say enough about the food here.

We all decided that it was our new favourite seafood restaurant in the area.

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