EVO Hosteria Trastevere — Restaurant in Rome

.We had lunch today, and the place is small but nice, though a bit loud. The food is great, and the service is quick, but one of the owners, who's also the manager (the other one's the chef), is super rude and unprofessional. I'm nine months pregnant and can't eat raw or undercooked food, so I told them before ordering. I got the duck, but it was medium and had some salad. I asked the manager to cook it more and take the salad off, like I asked. She got annoyed and said the salad was fine and the duck couldn't be cooked more. I explained I couldn't eat raw salad for my baby's safety and couldn't eat undercooked meat, and if they couldn't fix it, I'd order something else. She said no problem and brought back a new dish with the duck still undercooked and no salad.I told her I couldn't eat the food, and she freaked out. Then I asked to speak to the chef. He said he couldn't cook the duck any more after microwaving it. So I said I'd order something else, and I told them I was disappointed with the manager's attitude. That's when she started yelling at us to leave without paying, saying she was being nice by making a special dish. ( roasted salmon with potatoes) for my 3 yrs old daughter ( as a note I put a comment in the reservation saying that we had a 3 yrs old girl with us). So, basically, I only had two sides, and when we talked to the chef, they still made us pay (147 euros for 3 appetizers, 4 mains – including the baby's salmon – 2 sides: chicory and vignarola, water, and a bottle of white wine, which was awesome). The place is nice, the waiter was great, and the food was good, but the manager/owner was totally unprofessional, rude , unpolite . The ruined our lunch....

Update 16 June 2025 at 21:57:

Hello owner,

It would behoove you not to make assumptions about the kind of dishes eaten by your patrons. To clarify your misguided statement, I am accustomed to eating appropriately seasoned food when dining out. My boyfriend, a born and raised Roman man pointed out the lack of salt in your food before I even took my first bite. Let us simply chalk it up to EVO Hosteria serving two underwhelming and unseasoned dishes to the same table.

Original review:

Based on the previous reviews, I have to wonder if I simply went on a bad day for the cooking staff.

We ordered pici gambero rosso e pistacchio di Bronte and a polpo dish. The first was made with too much oil. Unfortunately, it also suffered the ultimate sin due to the pasta being bland aka not cooked in ocean-salty water and somehow, all of the salt was absent from the shrimp as well. Other than that, the pistacchio was quite nice.

The polpo was even worse: hard as nails and saltless. How a chef could manage to completely remove the salt from saltwater creatures is beyond my realm of understanding. However, if their wizardry renders them capable of doing that, the least they could do is put that salt elsewhere in the dish while not overcooking the poor octopus. Sadly, the cook was beyond well done and went into the category of...

A small, hidden, very local place yet a few meters away from the main tourist streets. Food was not only reasonably priced but also excellent. This is a real italian food restaurant where you'll find a fairly small menu (sign of an honest restaurant) that is complemented with a lot of off-menu dishes of the day (sign of a creative, produce-focused kitchen). We had an amazing Amatriciana with fish instead of the pancetta, perfect fried artichoke, delicious braised lamb with eggplant purée and a super fresh moscardini (tiny mediterranean octopuses) in tomato sauce. We finished the meal with a salad of rocket, fresh raw Ovuli mushrooms and parmesan cheese. Simply outstanding. Would recommend this place to anyone looking to eat real italian food that goes waaaaay beyond pizza and carbonara. The only thing I would say didn't add to the experience was the music. Ragazzi, provate a scegliere una playlist un po' più interessante: l'house non c'entra nulla con l'esperienza che vuole proporre il vostro ristorante! Oltre a questo,...