La Rustica — Restaurant in Pisa

Top tip.... AVOID the 'Upside down Cacciucco'.

Clearly a very busy and popular restaurant, people were queuing outside to get a table. We manged to get a table and ordered first and second cousres. Our first courses were huge and my wife didn't feel she would be able to eat her second course. We asked if we could cancel our second courses and we were told it wasn't possible as the chef was preparing them and we were offered 'take away'.... I explained that we were travelling to the airport after the meal and take away would not be of use to us and waited for our second courses to be served to us. However our second courses were brought to us as 'take away'. Using Google translate I explained again and asked if the second course could be brought to us to eat at the table. The waitress returned with the food plated to eat. To my surprise the 'Chef' had clearly just tipped my food 'Cacciucco' upside down in a dish!!! The bread that had been on top of the dish was now underneath the fish.... Perhaps the Chef was annoyed at what was a simple request after a language misunderstanding...... Clearly very unprofessional behaviour on his/her part. A real shame for what is clearly a popular and...

Group of 4 of us popped to the Marina for lunch while on a day trip to Pisa. Opted to sit outside as it was about 30° and we needed a breeze. Firstly, they don't sell alcohol free beer (not a problem for me though). Menu was in Italian (funny that) but a QR code gave access to a translated version. Fantastic choices available. We all opted for a pizza, fries, and couple of salads with mussels as a shared starter. Mussels were plentiful, tasty and clearly fresh. Pizzas were amazing - great base & appropriate topping. Service was good despite our lack of Italian and their broken English. Would definitely...

We were perfectly happy with our very spontaneous visit - even if we hadn’t reserved a table in advance, they were able to make room for us next to the kitchen box, which allowed us to be completely immersed in the action running a very busy place. Our waitress spoke perfect English and both the starters and main courses were a blast! The only drawback I could think of was the noise levels, which we weren’t really used to from home. But that’s the price you have to pay for a truly Italian experience ❤️ Thanks again and we’ll make sure to stop by when...