Borghiciana Pastificio Artigianale — Restaurant in Rome

After almost a month of traveling and eating blissfully in Italy, we decided to eat here for lunch before heading to the airport since the ratings were so high.

We were surprised to find that this tiny restaurant was blasting music, like a bar/club, at 12pm. Since we were excited for the food, we laughed it off and saw it as a fun quirk of the place, but definitely wondered if we should ask them to lower it a bit since we didn't want to fly home with a headache. They eventually lowered it to a level where we felt like it wouldn't cause issues for us, so we let it rest. However, it should be said that the music is way, way too loud for a restaurant of that size, especially at midday. Even more weird is that they blasted ads at that volume as well between the songs, as if the music was coming from a YouTube video playlist or a Spotify account without a subscription. It was funny, but jarring and didn't match the ambience of the place.

By far, the worst issue was the food. We don't eat meat, so we had ricotta and spinach ravioli and fettucine with smoked salmon. Both dishes were way too salty, but since the fettucine had smoked salmon and that has a pretty strong taste on its own, it became almost inedible. After much discussion between us, my husband just had to send his fettucine back and politely asked if maybe something had gone wrong, because it felt like an accident. The owner said something to the effect of "that's just how we make the pasta water, maybe it's your sensibility". How is it possible?? This is certainly not how they make pasta in the rest of Rome, that's for sure. If they're going for that, then congratulations you're certainly unique. I can't even imagine how the pasta would taste if we had ordered something with meat. They did offer to substitute for another dish, so my husband chose a salad and it was better. Still a bit salty, but the water from the tomatoes and melon helped. If we had ordered the salad in another restaurant, we would have just thought "oh it's quite salty, but I like it anyway".

This is the first time we've ever sent something back or complained in a restaurant in both our lives. We are people who like everything (including meat, before we stopped eating it), we've traveled around Europe, we come from a country where codfish is preserved with so much salt that you have to prepare it in a certain way to be able to serve it. I have lived in China. I've spent this last week in Rome eating Cacio e Pepe. We are lovers of strong flavours and salty food. It is, certainly, not our "sensibilities".

My husband is still convinced it must have been an accident and they reacted poorly. I don't have as much faith as he does. There was an Asian couple sitting next to us who also ordered pasta: they were gulping down their waters and the man kept coughing. I'd take that as a huge sign. Avoid.

Edit: Despite the attitude regarding our complaint from the owner, I am giving the service 3 stars because the waitress that served...

The music was way too loud, which at first was funny but quickly became headache-inducing. There were also ads playing in between each song (also very loud). Aside from the high volume and the weird ads, song choice was great, and would have created a good ambience.

Whenever there was a pause in the music, you could hear sighs of relief from the other people eating there, and whenever a new song/ad started, everyone rolled their eyes, so at least that was pretty funny. 😂

As for the food, it was so salty you could make a salt mine out of the salmon fettuccini I ordered. I like salty food and I expected some saltiness because of the smoked salmon, but after 3 bites I was suffering. 2 more bites and I felt like I had just drank a bottle of soy sauce. It was a pity because the salmon was clearly good quality and the pasta was perfectly al dente.

I told the waiter/manager that there seemed to have been an issue with the salt and asked if they could redo the dish. Unfortunately, he just said I must be too sensitive because no one else complained and that they couldn't redo it with less salt because they use the same water to boil all of the pasta. The manager told me I could send back the pasta and ask for something else, but then added very angrily that I couldn't send back anything else—a behaviour I found unnecessarily hostile, as I was being very gentle and polite during this whole exchange, so it felt like he was accusing me of sending back good food on purpose.

The salad I ordered as a replacement was also very salty, which makes me wonder if they purposely added more salt than usual to gaslight me into thinking that I'm the problem. Since I don't like confrontation and was already exhausted by the loud music, I just suffered through it, ate as much of the salad as I could, asked for the bill and left, but thinking back (and especially after reading other reviews complaining about the same) I wish I had stood my ground and sent it back as well.

Prices were reasonable for the area and the waitress was very kind. If you eat here, I hope you catch them on a good day, but I really can't recommend this place because of the loud music, salty food (which could have just been an honest mistake), and especially because of the poor way the manager handled...

ONE STAR REVIEW CAUSE THAT IS HOW A CRAZY FAN LIKE ME GET THE ATTENTION OF THE OWNER! ONE STAR BECAUSE YOU MAKE ME CRY WITH YOUR PERFECT PASTA WHERE MY LIFE IS FOREVER CHANGED NOW THAT I TASTED YOUR AMAZING FOOD!!!!!!

Okay now that I vented (it's okay my one star review is not gonna affect his business he got thousands of 5 stars reviews)

Oh my gawd the food here is amazingly AWESOME!!! It was our first dinner the first evening when we got to Italy. We had travel Italy for over two and half weeks only to find ourselves back here just to have the food before flying back to USA. The restaurant owner and his assistant are the best people ever - the pasta feeling dizzy just thinking about it gives a new name to what AL Dente is with luscious, amazingly flavorful, perfectly season (its like I am hugging myself cross-eyed in happiness and joy - try the food, you will know what I mean). This is NOT a restaurant - its a place where people eat!

The host are perfectly gracious, passionate about many things, and sometimes throw a curveball about Roma, which clearly is a city he truly love. His assistance, the young lady is so amazingly sweet and efficient and both of them complement the exceptional services that were provided. I definitely have to come back here when I visit Rome again. I am so tempted to kidnap the host and bring him back in the suitcase with me but that would be illegal!! His assistant will happily follow me (I think). Waiting in line is definitely worth it - its first come first serve basis (you notice that there are no phone number - and their voice mail is broken due to all the admiration and love messages that came to BPA (the name of the restaurant silly, not that stupid plastic chemical)

It's Sunday and they are torturing us by closing early and tomorrow on Monday we are going to starve ourselves - maybe climb the Scala Sancta on our knees, with penitence and pray that we will get in to have the most awesome food in Italy before we leave on...