Il Peperoncino — Restaurant in Pisa

The day started surprisingly well. The owner greeted us and told us short stories about his dog and life.

We were 2 adults serving lunch, so we decided to have 1 starter and 2 pasta dishes. When the waiter came, she put 2 starters on the table. We didn't want to make a scene so we went along with it.

The buratta we ordered was special. I have genuinely bought better mozzarella from Lidl, and the mozzarella from Lidl really sucks. It was definitely purchased and not in-house prepared. It was completely dry inside and no flavour. But we went along with it.

Then the magic happened, the pasta arrived. I had carbonara and it was probably the worst I have ever had in my life. The egg was for sure rotten and the quantity of salt would have made even the Dead Sea cry. More than that, the noodles had a very strange taste, like they were boiled in old water used for other pasta.

My partner got pasta Amatraciana and it was very special. Extremely salty bacon and the sauce...the best ketchup in town, probably.

We decided that we will not eat it anymore and just nicely asked for the bill to pay. We decided to not complain, for it might have been an isolated case. The owner came to ask why we don't eat do I believe (like a naive child) that he wanted feedback.

I told him that the taste is not for me, it is too much salt and the pasta taste like it was boiled in already used water. The owner said "well of course, we boil all pasta in the same water one day before we serve it and keep it there for flavour" - just wow 🥲

My parter explained that the sauce felt like ketchup and you can imagine his shock. (Probably of our discovery).

At the end we still paid 65 Euro for which he double charged us without knowing, ending up paying 130 EURO for the worst experience of this year.

I recommend to go there only out of revenge or wanting to break up...

A warm welcome and a door that was held open for us by two friendly men is what we got as we approached the Il Peperoncino in a cold winter's afternoon.

One of the gentlemen led us to a nice table for us two and promptly handed us the menu.

Shortly after, while we were still browsing the menu (which has both, italian and english on it), the other gentleman brought a small basket with complimentary bread in it to our table.

When it came to ordering, we werent quite sure what the one dish we sought after was actually called, but fortunately the waiter offered to, and actually did identify it by a picture we showed him - a type of spaghetti with all sorts of sea food. The other dish we ordered off the menu was a spicy pizza.

The food was really good, the prices were reasonable (~30€ for 2 meals and 1 drink) and the portion sizes left the both of us satisfied.

Noteworthy is that the seafood spaghetti were at only ~13,50€.

After we finished our food, another Gentleman, who seemed to be the owner of the establishment, came to our table to kindly ask us if we wanted another drink or a dessert. We declined, and I asked to pay instead.

As we were about to leave, the 3. gentleman inquired about our dining experience and asked me to write a review.

At Il Peperoncino my wife and I concluded our trip to the Pisa Tower with a delightful, authentic italian meal in a warm and...

Never had I had such difficulty sharing my negative experience at a restaurant like this. In July 2022, on our day trip to Pisa, I tried to reserve a table for 2 at this restaurant under my name twice but kept being rejected. Meanwhile my boyfriend had no problem getting accepted for a reservation under his name at the same time and date. The only difference? He has a Western name and I didn't. Out of curiosity, I tried submitting another reservation under a Western pseudonym and my reservation got accepted immediately. I still have screenshots of all these interactions as proof and the restaurant can very easily verify these in their reservation database - they know what they did :)

Take this however you will, but I'm willing to call this racial discrimination.

This and the fact that my first more details review of my experience at this restaurant last year did not get published shows you what kind of establishment this is. I don't know why Google doesn't allow such a review? It doesn't contain any hate speech, anything off-topic or obscene or profane? It only entails my experience being discriminated while trying to have dinner at Il Peperoncino during my travel.

In summary, I do not recommend this place to anyone who respect humanity and its...