Da Benito e Gilberto — Restaurant in Rome

I found this restaurant on Google Maps with a 4.6 rating and was excited to try their clam linguini, which is one of my favorite dishes. I even biked quite a long way to get there, full of anticipation—but unfortunately, it turned out to be a disappointing experience.

When I arrived, a male server asked a woman who seemed like the owner whether I could sit inside. She glanced over and appeared to shake her head. Then the server told me I could only sit outside. At that time, there were still several empty tables indoors, and it was obvious that some diners were nearly finished with their meals.

I accepted the outdoor seating without complaint, but of the four outdoor tables, three had tableware already set, and two had plates with bird droppings on them. I chose a table and waited around 15 minutes before anyone came to take my order—a bit slow, but still acceptable.

The food, however, was not. The pasta was extremely hard—not al dente, just unpleasantly undercooked. Worse, every single clam was full of sand. I had to spit it out with almost every bite. I barely managed to eat half the dish.

What really upset me was the treatment difference I observed. A group of five arrived after me and also sat outside. The staff quickly cleared just the visibly dirty plates for them, but didn’t clean the rest of the table properly. Then, before they even sat down, the server proactively turned on two outdoor heaters for them. I noticed there was also a heater right behind me, but nobody ever offered to turn it on during my entire meal—even though it was quite cold, and my pasta went cold within a few minutes.

When it was time to pay, the service remained indifferent. I travel alone around the world and am usually not sensitive to how people treat me—but the atmosphere here made me feel awkward and unwelcome. I can’t say for sure if it was because I wasn’t a local, but the whole experience felt uncomfortable.

The only reasons I’m not giving one star are: the pasta was cheap (under €20), and while they charged a cover fee (2 or 2.5 euros), I wasn’t informed about it beforehand. The complimentary bread also didn’t look appetizing.

This was the final meal of my 20-day Europe trip. I came in with so much hope and left with disappointment. Maybe no one will care, but I still wanted to write this as a...

Da Benito e Gilberto is probably the best Italian restaurant in Rome. Amazing! Just fyi, it is family owned and the majority of those who dine there is Italian. Though the server did not speak much English, one of the workers did. I think she was either the manager or hostess. Either way, I was so pleasantly surprised by this place. We did not have a reservation so they took our name and gave us a time to come back. We walked around the area for a bit then returned. They were so friendly and the food was out of this world amazing! The seafood is so fresh, better than anything I’ve had in North America. We had the clams and muscles in a garlic white wine sauce which was fantastic! The sauce was so good I could eat it like a soup!!!!!! Then I had the sardine stuffed pasta, which the lady said was her favorite and a side salad. The lettuce is unlike anything I’ve had in the US. It’s so flavorful and good and the tomatoes are garden fresh. So sweet and juicy and amazing! Then for desert they were out of the one I had initially picked, so the server recommended this little cake. This was my birthday dinner and boy was I impressed. The cake was like this little soufflé. It was so hot and sweetly fragrant. When I used my baby spoon to cut into it, it was like a lava cake only better than anything I’ve ever had. The cake part was really good. Not too sweet or anything. It was the right amount of everything, really. Not too dry or overcooked. Perfection. Truly. It had just the slightest caramelized texture on the outside, but soft and delicious at the same time. Inside, a hot sort of custard spilled out once I cut through it. Together was magic! I’ve never had anything like it!!!! I could eat there again anytime and be absolutely happy. My husband had the lobster pasta and was really pleased, then for dessert, he got the coffee gelato which was...

DINNER ISN'T JUST ABOUT THE FOOD This seafood restaurant offers excellent products and the dinner was quite tasty. It has a good price/quality ratio, but the service was far below my expectations—slow and arrogant, to be blunt. It took 20 minutes to get oysters, which is unreasonable given that raw food doesn't need cooking. For our mains, we ordered: one pasta fagioli e frutti di mare, one calamari e patate, and one pasta from the chef for a friend who has dietary restrictions due to religious reasons. At the end of the meal, a lady asked us for our feedback. We told her that while the food was great, waiting 45 minutes for three mains was excessive. She replied that everything was correct from her point of view and that we had waited less than that. I told her it was just my opinion and didn't want to argue, but she responded in dialect that "I could have chosen another dish," and left the table huffing. I'm sorry, but I'm not accustomed to this...