Babel wine bar bistrò & art — Restaurant in Ravello

I normally don't write a negative review because I honestly have never had a reason to: until today.

Me and my fiancee are on our 3rd and last night in Ravello, Italy before we head to another town for a few nights which by the way everything and every restaurant and bar so far has been fantastic (especially the views from this village!) , except this last restaurant where we both thought we would experience the genuine Italian food experience

Firstly when we receive the menus there was nothing out of the ordinary that caught our eye compared to what we saw in the windows before entering, then secondly I don't know if it was the manager or just an employee but it was an elderly rude man who kept repeating about 5 different "specials for today" to everyone which also didn't really catch my interest but anyway, I asked if they serve meatballs with spaghetti and he said yes, so I figured oh that's just what I came here for and my fiancee ordered one of the "specials"

When the food comes to the table, I literally get a small plate with 8 meatballs in tomato sauce and some cheese sprinkled on top, but no spaghetti, so I ask him to come to my table and ask if it is not supposed to be served with spaghetti or some kind of pasta

To this he replies no, we do not have this on the menu so I try to kind of ask if I can add this as an extra but again he says no this is not possible several times, that it's not an American restaurant: isn't pasta or spaghetti Italian? :/

Anyway I am so upset about the whole thing and just want to get it over with and finish the plate and get the check paid and leave

The meatballs tasted barely anything, the tomato sauce was nothing compared to what the local pizza places in Ravello and Amalfi serve on a regular pizza, and the small pieces of sprinkled cheese didn't add anything either honestly

So anyway, we finish our plates and are ready to get the check to pay and be on our way, and at this point when I mentioned that we just want to pay and leave, the same rude man brings a menu to us again and tries to explain that what I wanted is not something they offer

( isn't the customer always right or at least always try to make the customer happy when even given the idea about extras to be ordered?!)

They did offer pasta to other dishes by the way, several times during the specials for today offers

At the same time when I said we just want to pay and leave because we have other places to be, this rude man says he doesn't like my attitude and keeps on going through the menu again,

Never in my life have I experienced such bad service towards a customer and trust me, I am never in any way rude or complex as a customer I always ask things politely because I've been raised good, I literally tried several times in a good and controlled way to ask to improve my dish with extras where he instantly said no it is not possible to do this

I will never come back to this restaurant again and I hope no one else ever has such an experience because it really ruined such a nice day where everything has been so nice until this point

At the beginning the man was even rude to a different party in the restaurant who were waiting for the rest of their family to arrive, he said he has a line outside the entrance and can't just have some people filling the chairs and not ordering anything because they are waiting 2 minutes later the rest arrived by the way.

Worst....

It’s probably the worst pizza I had during all my 6 or 7 visits in Italy. It’s not pizza actually but one square-shaped slice of a dough with supermarket taste and shape. While in other places you pay around 10€ for a whole pizza, here you pay that price for one slice. The rest of plate is filled with salad to somehow fulfill empty space on your plate. Taste of this pizza is far from Italian one. They don’t use real oven to bake it but the kind of electrical oven looking like a microwave. Calling this snack a pizza is cheating.

Going further, cannelloni is filled with a long block of minced meat with poor quality and almost no tomato sauce. It’s not the typical Italian cannelloni, nothing to do with spices, cooking meat in any wine or vegetables, forget it. It’s just the meat without taste and feeling super cheap. It doesn’t look good either. Portions are small as for Italian restaurants - for 18€ you should be full after eating, here is not possible. I definitely can’t reccommend this place, it’s overpriced and it’s not Italian food and taste! If you taste it and say it’s good it means you were probably only eating on Amalfi coast in low quality restaurants and not real Italian ones. Pasta was not cooked Al dente but it was overcooked - it’s unbelievable!

Even the toilets are kind of disaster - have a look on the photo how it looks like, worse than on petrol station on the motorway :(

EDIT: you can’t make pasta and more and more people see it (look at your lowest, new reviews). You are overcooking pasta and it’s not fresh one (but that’s ok). At least don’t cheat people and don’t lie in your response, you want to make evyerthing in the cheapeast possible way and that’s your choice. The worst place...

Absolutely a restaurant you cant trust. Do NOT come here. We had a reservation from the 2nd of july for the 14th and it was confirmed through email. Once we get to the restaurant, we find that all the tables are all occupied. But the worst was feeling that the owner wanted us gone after explaining the problem, he did not offer a solution. At the end, we did not have where to eat because of his incompetence. I would actually rate this with 0 stars. Poor management, worse problem resolution capability.

Response to the comment of the owner:

In you own email, you stated that if possible confirm the day before, not mandatory. You told us that you expected us at 19:00 when in the email is stated at 21:00. The problem arose because your mistake, so the arrogant attitude is not owning up the mistake.

1. You offer a drink but there was nowhere to sit. 2) There was not a single table in desserts, so obviously it was impossible to have dinner in 15 mins. 3) therefore there is not a solution and your attitude was clearly towards us leaving 4) Precisely, for respect for the other clients, we didn't want to make a scene.

This restaurant can't be trusted. The manager is not even able to manage a reservation. Even more worrying is the fact that he attacks the harmed party instead of owning up his mistake.

Much better attention has been received at other bar/restaurants in Ravello.

Best regards from the "arrogant clients that had a reservation but ended up...