Pizza & Pasta — Restaurant in Pompei

PLEASE DO NOT GO HERE

This is the first time I have ever done a review anywhere in my 24 years alive - PLEASE DO NOT GO HERE. On arrival, we sat down and a waiter promptly asked us about drinks, after ordering drinks we decided what we wanted to eat. 30 minutes passed with multiple failed attempts to flag down our same waiter who gave us our drinks to order food, clearly ignoring us. Eventually I stood up to ask to order food to which the same waiter replied he only does ‘drinks’ and pointed aimlessly to the inside area. Now realising the way to order food at this establishment is to go inside and order, I stand up again and go inside, to which I am greeted by I believe to be the owner who tells me he will be over shortly. A further 20 minutes pass and nothing. Finally giving up, I go inside to pay for the drinks so we can get food elsewhere, to which the same ‘owner’ tells me it’s cash only! I have seen multiple guests pay with card so I refuse to pay with cash and insist on card and go back to my table. A few minutes later the ‘owner’ comes back over for payment in cash to which we finally berate how poor the service has been, after which he sheepishly points to inside to pay with card with his female colleague!!! Categorically the worst ‘dining’ experience I’ve ever had and to top it off, on the way out an Italian duo eating dinner said we were right to complain and told us they had to wait an hour before getting their food. After this we went to LA GUSTOSA POMPEI (2 MIN WALK AWAY) and the service and food (pizza in particular)...

When we arrived we were received by a "friendly" server. We saw the self-help salad by the window and passed a light comment of "that s nice" but the server took us seriously and urged us inside while handed us a plate in great warmth, saying it s free, repeated again when we hesitated and said "remind me when you finish so that I ll take it off the bill".... We took a small portion only as we did not want to appear as "greedy", and because it was "free" we ordered an extra course (grilled chicken) so as to make it fair on them. .... when in fact we just wanted some salad and a pizza. We were recommended the most expensive bottle wine on the list although it was still v cheap, at only 25 euro. Well yes you guessed it, the bill came with a 16 Euro charge for the 2 portions of salad, and the guy had no shame of saying it costed 8 euro for one and so 16 euro for 2 ! We didn't bother to argue anything and just put down 61 euro, not a cent more. We really wouldn't mind paying but we ended up eating and paying more than we actually needed.

Back to the food, well, honestly, so so, nothing worth mentioning, except that our order was missed and we waited for 30 minutes, while everybody else who came later got their food served before ours.

TOURISTS TRAP ! DON'T GO!

(Please see other 1* reviews below, and actually there were others trapped...

Food better than average for Italian restaurants aka Olive Garden quality with lesser portions. Family of 4 cost a little over 50 euro without drinks. 2 euro per person service charge which I'm sure is for the tourists. Beautiful view of the cathedral however with lots of traffic if eating outside. Dock one star for having very illegible handwriting on the receipt and then doing the math wrong- they added a few extra euros at the bottom if you don't put your calculator out. They would seem to speak English just fine until the bill and then would go ahead and say no English anymore, and demanded cash because the card processing machine doesn't work. Would not come again. Was recommended by the hotel that I was staying at and in retrospect everything is a kickback in Italy. I told the front desk after dinner and they just smiled. Pretty sad that Pompei is much like Rome and Florence where they really don't care about their tourists because that maybe the first and last time coming. They don't realize or maybe they do that return customers and social media like this posting will pretty much destroy their reputations...