BARRED — Restaurant in Rome

Unfortunately I can't recommend this place and I certainly won't come back. I had been looking forward to eating and drinking at Barred for a long time, tempted specially by the wine list. The food was delicious and well presented (hence the two stars), albeit over-priced, although I would've happily paid even more if I was felt welcome by the staff, whose behaviour was sadly, very disappointing.

Nowhere during our dinner were we treated warmly. I had booked the day before, arrived on time and not even half of the place was full. They wanted to sit us at the table right next to the door, but I asked to be seated instead at one the three other empty tables for two inside and I was told I had to wait so that they could check whether they were available! For whom? Another client who had booked just like I had?

After waiting for 5 minutes in a semi empty restaurant I was finally granted the permission to sit at the table, and I asked to see the wine list while waiting for my friend who was running late. This took nearly 20 minutes while the clients who arrived after me were already served.

Finally the waitress arrived with the wine list. I was quite looking forward to discuss the wine as you usually do with the sommelier to choose a wine you're interested in. This did not happen. There was no conversation around the wine whatsoever apart from the question whether I prefer a floral wine or a robust one. She went away after this half a sentence. I honestly thought she'd send me the sommelier to talk me through wine list.

15 minutes later she came back with a bottle in her hand. Meanwhile my friend had arrived. When she was opening the bottle I had to ask 'so what are we drinking?' and she gave a short explanation. I didn't like wine when I tested it, it wasn't what I was looking for, but she put it in a way as if I was the one who didn't get it, instead of admitting that we never talked about the wine and she just came back with a bottle we had never discussed. We were quite honestly shocked by this behaviour.

Towards the end of the evening when the restaurant was again half empty two of the staff members kept looking at us and our table and made us feel quite uncomfortable, as if they expected us to leave, while there were several tables available.

This is irrelevant, but my friend and I are both food and travel writers, and the reason we were having dinner together is because at the moment she's updating a Rome guide for a renowned publication. We often dine out whether on press dinners or simply to find out new favorites in Rome. It's always enlightening how restaurants treat...

I'll happily pay for good food, but when I think the place is trying "too hard", I have to say something. Positives are the pork main was flavoursome but needed some kind of carb...Paying 22EUR for a main I would expect some accompanying carb (it was very rich and decent in terms of flavour but was done in about 5 mouthfuls...). The Tubetti was too hard (and just tasted on sumac). I'm all for "Al dente" pasta but when it gets stuck in my teeth, I'm not a fan. The panna cotta was ok, but was more crumble and marmellata...the actual panna cotta didn't taste of much.

A little thing...if you're giving out bread (which was good) please give us each a small plate, and a decent amount of olive oil and salt.

The waiting staff were super friendly and knowledgable, but to be honest I'd have rather had slightly bigger portions and tastier food.

This may sound harsh, but when a meal for 3 costs roughly 150EUR with just 1 glass of wine for 3 courses each...we expected more.

We came about a year ago, and to be honest the food was better. We had a nice bottle of wine then also, which heightened the experience...but this time was a miss! I nearly gave it a 1 star, but I felt that's too harsh...there were still some good flavours (Pork)!

I know the team are aiming for a "fine-dining" experience, but it feels like the food takes second place to the...

Sadly, it was a very disappointing experience. We chose this restaurant because we were attracted by the nice plate design on the pictures and the quite unusual dishes (for Rome). However, none of our dishes (appetizer, 1st course, 2nd course) were good. Rather, the dishes (small portions, very long waiting time, quite pricey) were made kind of basic and without any distinctiveness. Some times it’s fair enough to have this kind of basic cuisine. However, we don’t think that the ingredients had the quality to do so in this case (the salad of the appetizer was way too bitter, the mushrooms of the main course which were announced to be fermented were obviously just raw and so on). This restaurant has the potential to be an interesting alternative to the usual traditional kitchen in Rome. But there’s much more motivation and thoughtfulness required to do so. At least all persons working there and especially our waiters were very nice persons (even if they were apparently quite tired) and handled our...