Vesuvio — Restaurant in Pompei

Our group was in Pompei and had a prearranged meal at Ristorante Vesuvio Pizzeria. On first inspection the restaurant looks like a normal pizzeria but in the back there is a massive dining room. This is clearly a tour group based business, as there were numerous large groups there. Everything was covered in white sheets, which made the place look like someone had died. We were seated at 4 or 5 tables and were not given a menu, rather we had a prearranged meal. We would get salad and pasta, before a main course of either pizza, seafood, or meat. Our guide explained this to us as he was "the only one who could speak English", but during meal service I heard several of the waiters speak in English quite clearly. The guide recommended pizza or seafood, which led me to choose seafood. Only 2 people in our group of 44 got meat, while only 4 got seafood. The first thing they brought was drinks, which was the best part of the meal. I ordered a water, but didn't receive it until just before the first course was served (30 minutes into service.) When eventually the first course arrived I wasn't very hungry, so I said no spaghetti. One of two things that an Italian restaurant should be able to do at least decently is pasta, however someone at my table said that the pasta was nasty and watery. Around half of our table piled our spaghetti on a plate which we gave to another table who enjoyed the pasta. After that a salad came around. I got the salad because I thought, who can mess up a salad? It was just lettuce and fennel, so it seemed like a safe bet, but the lettuce tasted like plastic. Furthermore, some of it was turning purple. The fennel was nasty and shriveled. It had been a long time since I had fennel, but this didn't taste right or have the correct consistency. But the weirdest thing was when I found a lemon seed in my salad. There was no lemon in the salad, and it was undressed, so how did it end up in there? I still do not know. They took our plates and a man came over with a guitar and sang 4 songs while playing. It was not my style of music, nor anyone's in the group, but it was nice to be able to pass the time laughing while we waited for the food that seemed as though it would never arrive. The pork finally arrived and looked like a wet gray brick had been carelessly thrown on the plate, with sludge poured on top of it. One of the people that ordered the pork took a bite of it and immediately gagged, while the other said he thought it was "weird chicken." After a good 10 minutes, the pizzas started to arrive. It took 23 minutes for the pizzas to all arrive, which is unacceptable no matter where you are. The margarita pizzas had 1 half basil leaf on them, but the biggest problem with them was the inconsistency. Some people said that they were good, but others were not. Most of the ones at our table were awful. One person picked up he slice and all the toppings slid off of the uncooked center and onto the plate in a soupy mess, while the crust was burned. This obviously set the bar very low for the calamari, which was probably for the better. The calamari took a further 10 minutes to come. They didn't even make an attempt to plate it, rather just dumping it on the plate. The calamari was chewy, greasy, undercooked, unseasoned, and had a metallic taste. I couldn't eat more than one ring it was so nasty. I didn't even try the shrimp, and that was probably also for the better. Finally they served dessert, which was strawberry ice cream that tasted like bubblegum cough syrup. We were there for 1 hour and 45 minutes and had a meal that any Kitchen Nightmares chef would be proud of. DO NOT GO HERE, it's the ultimate tourist trap restaurant, and there are surely better...

Went here as part of the Pompeii and Amalfi coast tour. I wish I'd read the reviews before agreeing to do "dinner" here. I should have walked out when I saw the Parisian olive oil on the table... In Pompeii.

We were rushed inside a plain white room with nothing on the walls, and served us a bag of lettuce with rough chopped tomatoes and what I can only assume was 1/4th of a can of tuna.

The "Margherita" Pizza was maybe a step above American middle school cafeteria pizza, and I used quotation marks because there were about 3 sad leaves of basil on the entire thing. The lack of basil was a particular shame as it was possibly the only seasoning on the entire thing.

The one person at our table of four who did not order the pizza had to wait an extra 15 minutes. When their pasta finally arrived at the table it was plopped, unceremoniously onto a plate and left at the far end of the table, where another guest had to hand it to her.

To round out the 30 minute period that was generously referred to as dinner, was what they said was ice cream. It came in a single flavor, and was a pretty sad scroop. It evoked a sense of longing, like the person who made it really longed to taste a lemon, but hadn't managed to try one themselves.

To round it out, the whole thing- cost twenty euros per person. That experience generously should have been possibly half that. The whole thing was easily the worst dining experience I've had in Italy, and at the risk of sounding melodramatic, was likely the worst of...

Stay away from this tourist trap ! I initially only wanted to stay to park which came with a cost, so I decided to pay to eat instore (big mistake) to profit from their free parking if u dine here. So I ordered a pizza and my cousin ordered a cappuccino. The atmosphere was unprofessional, it was like it was bring family to work day, their own staff weere lounging about being loud and obnoxious as we werre the only customer there. The pizza was worse than frozen one you'd buy at the store and the cappuccino.. 99 percent water and 1 percent coffee. Thought I ordered the wrong drink but it was rancid. To top it all off when I received the bill they added a extra charge. I assumed some sort of a service charge, however it was a charge for using their utensils, which was unbelievable, the waiter who served us pulled out the menu which for example was in size 12 font, the fine finer print which is funnily enough written in Italian at minus 50 print so u could only see it with a magnifying glass . It was disgraceful. Furthermore, my cousin has ordered a cappuccino and used no utensils but he proceeded to still charge us for 2. In the end I paid only beciase I didn't want to be late for my trek to pompeii and secondly and most importantly, I didn't want to be arrested for GBH. Lesson , only use the restueant if u just want to park for pompeii trek its only 10 euros. Secondly if u want to eat don't.. but if u insist take a magnifying glass and read the...