Drogheria Culinaria — Restaurant in Reggio Calabria

Great looking restaurant, spacious, bright with open kitchen and chef preparing pasta right on the spot. They welcomed us with local meats paste and bread snack. We ordered four dishes, two starters and two first courses. It was a surprise when we had to reach our phone to download the menu, which for both of us sharing one phone screen was troublesome to browse through wide selection of dishes. Our food experience here tells us this might be a place for locals or consumers with acquired taste. The Contro-corrente dish based on fried octopus was overwhelming due to ovsrsalted crust. On the contrary the cod in the Stocco Pachino Tomato was plain unseasoned with gummy texture. The Rosso di Calabria presentation with strings of saffron was excellent but dish had strong smell of dried fish reminding me those from Asian markets, nothing I ever tasted here in Calabria visiting other restaurants. Definetely not my pallet. Finally Costa Viola dish based on mussels, squid, swordfish and claims had bits of shell in it. Both last courses were based on thick Maccarruni pasta made aldente, something foreign tourists may not be used to. Lots of the surprises could be avoided if traditional paper menu was oferred. Also the welcoming server who took our order wasn't very clear about ingredients and answered most questions saying yes or pasta. I would definitely choose less thick pasta like spaghetti if server be more attentive to our questions. I am taking off one start for food quality and second for chipped beer glass served in 2nd round. which was unacceptable. I recommend looking for other places, there are several excellent quality restaurants around where we spend same amount enjoying way better cuisine during our vacations in Reggio...

I wanted so much to like this place. I was excited to try Calabrian cuisine and had studied the Google reviews carefully beforehand to get a sense of what to order. Yes I saw a few negative reviews but put it down to moany, close minded foreigners. Sadly, much of the criticisms transpired to be true. First, this restaurant needs to sort out its air conditioning. There was none to speak of in the front near the window, and several diners were desperately fanning themselves with whatever they could find. On closer inspection, I found there is an exhaust pumping out ferocious heat outside in front of the window near the entrance, which no doubt adds to the already oppressive Aug heat and therefore to the discomfort of diners. This is unacceptable. Secondly, expect inconsistent seasoning across all courses. Stay away from all Norwegian cod dishes if you don't like salty fish. Meat dishes are seasoned twice, once upon cooking, and seasoned again (heavily) on completion. Vegetables were under seasoned. And oddly, cold. If you want the lamb and porcini pasta go at lunchtime as they frequently run out of it by dinner. Finally, the QR code menu is fine if you're a cafe with 10 items, but not when you have an extensive and complicated menu like this place. The sad thing is that Drogheria Culinaria has all the core elements there, the quality is good and I love the local focus. It's just the execution lacks a bit. My advice? Under order. Take it one dish at a time and choose carefully. Finally, if you don't eat pork your options are somewhat limited. Make sure you consult with your waiter even on what looks to be veggie (note, only a couple...

An interesting menu, i was looking forward to taste it. But it happened to be one of the worst food I've ever had in Italy. The only dish we liked was the bean's stew my partner had, which was an appetiser to feed the family. The appetiser I ordered, The Snails, was huge as well but also it was awful. It looked all right but the amount of chewy snails in it was astonishing. The snails were so hard, I had to leave them all and shame I didn't take a picture of the dish after I had some of the broth, to reveal how much packed it was with snails. Next were the mains. My partner had some Swordfish rolls which he didn't enjoy, neither they looked any good. My order was yet an another disaster, - Squid tentacles, which came up as a huge body of what seemed to be a boiled and then slightly browned in butter squid, chewy and tastless, with a charred and inedible tentacle on side. Dai, I make better at home! Even the grilled peppers, a side dish were not good at all. They seemed marinated and coming from the jar, not freshly grilled. A...