Trattoria La Scogliera — Restaurant in Riomaggiore

Our last dinner of our Italian Road trip which started in Milan, our home, through Firenze, Sorrento, Capri before 10 days in Sicily before heading back through Pompei, Pienza and then Cinque Terre on on our return to Milan, why write all this you may say, because I want you to understand that we understand Italy, its culture and most of all its food.

I'm English, my wife is Italian, I have lived here since 2007, I work in Luxury Retail, I breath hospitality, I know food, I love Italy, tonight I want to thank this restaurant as it helped me to teach my children the importance of passion for what they do, to have respect for their patrons, and to have the awareness to protect their reputation at all costs, and to fundamentally care.

I instinctively queued up (albeit for only a short time) to eat here, the restaurant was busy, I was at first impressed with the elderly gentlemans way of welcoming clients and finding them tables. Once seated we were given a menu with photos (alarm bells should have rung there), I ordered a margherita and some fries for my children, a Spaghetti alla vongole for my wife and a pasta with Octopus with a spicy tomato sauce for myself.

In the meantime of waiting, the elderly patron and his wife started arguing about how a table had just left and had ordered very little, ie. Little profit, all this in front of all the clients, in Italian, which I am fluent in. This made me start checking TA out of curiosity.

All I can say is all the negative comments are correct, pizza was frozen, my kids who love pizza didn't touch it, the two pasta dishes were the worst I have ever eaten, and they resemble the microwaveable pasta meals you would by in an English supermarket, absolutely to avoid.

This was the first time my wife and I had ever left a restaurant without eating, I asked for the bill and the embarrassed waitress, who was excellent, removed my pasta dish, we paid and left, the elderly gentleman looking me in the eye but not saying goodbye and thanking us at all for our custom (even though I was discreet and could have caused a scene, but I am too much of a gentleman to do so, preferring to let you make your own choice).

This restaurant is just for tourists, the only intention is to make money, no intention of amazing the clientele with typical Ligurian cuisine (we know well and own property further up the coast). No passion, no respect, no care, just rip off clients with the worst Italian food you could imagine, in the end we enjoyed a takeaway pizza under the moonlight, often simplicity is best.

Avoid this restaurant...

Egoes are above average, food quality is below average.

Let's start with the food: spaghetti la scogliera, and spaghetti al ragu were very oily/greasy, and out of 8 restaurants in Italy we ate at, this was easily the least tasty meal. 2/5.

Let's follow up with the service: this was an experience that I do not wish to repeat. The menu at the entrance made no mention of cover charge, and we refused the bread. At the end, they added 5 euro charge. From here, this only got worse.

When i pointed out that the menu doesn't mention a table charge, the gentlemen started screaming on us, and tried to shame us in front of everyone. He thought that this is the best place ever (the famous cinque terre!! What have you expected??) and that ALL restaurants have cover charge. I mean, many do, sure, but not all, for once, and many/(most?) also explicitly mention it on the menu at the entrance. In fact in Venice, Florence and Rome all the restaurants we ate at mentioned a cover charge at the entrance.

I have no problem paying the charge (although I would strongly prefer if it was clearly stated in the menu - personally i hate these kind of hidden fees), but after being screamed at, embarrassed, and shamed, they lost all hope for me covering (pun intended) that charge.

If i was rating just the food, it would be 2 or 3 out of 5, given the rest of the experience: 1/5.

Lesson for us: ask about cover charge beforehand. What I wish the restaurant did: write down the table charge (even if in small font) in the menu at the entrance.

What should not happen: screaming, shouting, embarrassing and shaming the customer. That's just not acceptable, regardless of circumstances.

Finally I forgot to mention: another reviewer mentions what looks like discrimination regarding covid passes for customers. I have seen it first hand and can confirm: some people were asked for the covid pass and some were not. Not sure what the...

I would like to preface by saying the service was great. Unfortunately the food was worse than awful. In case you don't want to read the whole review, it was bad quality fast food with high end prices.

I ordered the lasagna Bolognese and it was on par or worse than a reheated frozen lasagne with the meat removed. I asked to change dish, no problem I'm guessing i wasn't the first to send it back. I then asked to replace with the bistec which to me is a steak. The waiter explained it would basically be a burger without a bun, no problem i was fine with that, i unfortunately assumed fresh ground beef at least. When the food arrived it was two frozen supermarket beefburgers with some pre cut/ frozen oven chips, i will say, the only house made thing on the plate, the tartar sauce, was good.

My wife had the ravioli stuffed with fish, again the house made sauce was good but the raviolis bland and dry.

The house wine was nice, the servers were very well mannered, attentive and understanding.

I have almost never sent a plate back never mind write reviews but this place was just so awful and overpriced i actually feel angry.

I also understand it's a tourist town and the owner doesn't need to worry about repeat customers so he has no worries there but you are in Italy with some of the best chefs, near some of the best ingredient producers who sell at some of the best prices in the world.

It won't cost that much more to make a decent plate, i would have been satisfied with any effort at all but this seems to be cost cutting taken to the extreme for the price and rolled downhill on the servers and chefs.

In summary McDonald's quality for...