Ai Tre Scalini — Restaurant in Rome

It is with great pain that I leave this review. 5 years ago I visited Ai Tre Scalini and had what I considered to be the best Lasagna I had ever tasted. I remember the venue was crammed with locals, slightly off the beaten track and the food was excellent.

Sadly, that Ai Tre Scalini no longer appears to exist. I visited Rome against recently and couldn’t pass up the opportunity to revisit a place I had fond memories of.

When we arrived, we were faced with staff who honestly appeared like they couldn’t care less if they had our business or not (besides maybe the owner/manager). The venue was not overly full and had a lot more tourists inside than I remember. Potentially the venue’s positive reputation worked against them in this regard as more and more tourists started to filter through the doors. This has made Ai Tre Scalini less of a hidden gem - as evidenced by the fact that they have menus in English now.

All this would have been forgiven if the lasagna was of the quality I remembered. Unfortunately, it appears the kitchen has made the decision to pre-cook and reheat the food it serves now. The lasagna I got was not terrible (which warrants the three stars given by this review) but was reheated and definitely did not meet the lofty standards set by the venue previously.

All in all, there are many more places currently in Rome worthy of your business unless this venue reverts to its old...

A very quick downhill experience. We were greeted kindly and offered to sit at the bar area while we waited for the table which didn’t take too long. Both the person who greeted us and our server were initially friendly. We put our orders in and everything seemed to be going smooth. Our appetizer came out promptly, and we enjoyed it. However from here it was all downhill. After they collected our appetizer plates I ordered another beer which never came. We seemed to have been almost completely ignored and forgotten about upon finishing our appetizers, as we watched people who ordered after us receive their courses and leave, and even people who walked into the restaurant after us receive their meals too. We waited close to an hour before we we had to flag down the waiter and ask about our food and my beer. About 10 mins after asking the waiter, my plate/beer finally came but they handed my wife the completely wrong meal. After she waited another 10 mins for her correct order, it came out luke warm/ cold as if it had been microwaved. The waiter who seemed nice in the beginning of our meal, turned cold to us and seemed to have just not cared at all about us. They offered no apologies or anything to make up for the extremely lengthy inconvenience. If I ever come back to Rome, I’d eat at McDonald’s before...

We ordered Parmigiana, Porchetta. Chicken and Lasagna. The food came cold (they were all heat up dishes, not even close to warm food). The side dishes didn't even arrive, partially. The pork was dry, so bad that one could choke on it. The parmigiana was a shame: it was cold and not savory, and had barely layers of thick cut aubergine. The chicken was ok but also cold. All dishes seemed to have been microwaved. The biggest disappointment in Rome after reading such good reviews, and having waited SO long for our food. We asked to pay for the drinks and leave, as the food was not edible (it was not a matter of just cold food, it was really BADLY cooked food), they still wanted to charge us for the side dishes although the waiter took them away as soon as we complained. In the end they let us go and pay just for the drinks but had the audacity to state that their food was good - maybe they're not italian. We are regularly in Italy (3 times a year) and have never eaten or been treated worse (the waiter was SO unfriendly and sighed everytime although we tried to remain friendly). Only one waitress treated us nicely and apologized for the bad treatment and food, we felt sorry for her. Please, PLEASE avoid this...