Hosteria del Mercato — Restaurant in Rome

THIEVES operate in and around this restaurant. My partner and I sat at the table directly outside the bar. Having read similar reviews, this table in particular is a hotspot. There are two entrances, so people can come and go without you seeing.

A male and female stood on the corners adjacent to us, on their phones. The female appeared to be engaged in a phone call. A well dressed man with sunglasses and black rucksack also stood adjacent to our table trying to blend in. We didn’t think too much of it at this point and ordered our drinks.

Despite the quick service around us, our drinks order did not arrive. We sat for around twenty minutes. The three people mentioned were still standing adjacent to us.

At this point a very well dressed man in his mid 50’s distracted me by repeatedly pointing to the ground. I stood up and saw that my handbag was missing and had clearly been snatched from behind by another. Two girls pointed to the thief who was walking down vicolo del Lupo. It was the male with the sunglasses and black rucksack who had been watching us the entire time. Luckily we caught him, he removed my bag from his rucksack and handed it back. At this point the male and female appeared, as did our waiter who hadn’t yet brought our drinks... Their reactions were odd. The male looked disappointed that I got my bag back.

We returned to our seats, only because we had ordered. Our drinks came instantly….. the waitress seemed to be playing a part trying to tidy up the botched bag snatch. She approached our table and commented that it happens all the time and I got lucky. Weird.

As we sat there the male and female returned and casually patrolled the street, entered and exited the bar and chatted with staff but did not engage with passers-by. They returned to their spots and stood adjacent to us. As we sat there, we then started to notice the same people repeatedly going round blending in with passers-by whilst scanning the restaurant. It was clear this was a group operating with lookouts, thieves and distracters. It was pretty obvious that the staff were in on it. Reading other comments...

We walked passed this place and decided to come back because it looked pretty awesome with its nice garden like area, organic juice bar and more. Really enjoyed the juice. Unfortunately our experience went downhill after we ordered food. I was brought a completely different dish to what I ordered. I pointed it out to waiter and he said 'well.. I can take it back but I can't take it off your bill'. We managed to get him to call the waiter I ordered from who tried to tell me that that's what I pointed to on the menu upon which I reminded him that he had repeated my order back to me earlier on so he knew exactly what I was ordering, made a mistake and was trying to blame me. I got the dish I ordered initially in the end, but your waiters' reaction to their own mistake was petty. It's bad enough to mix up an easy order, much worse to react like a 5 year old. Also, my husband's €14 second course was just pasta on its own, starter size with literally a sprinkling of bacon. Italian food is great in principle, but so far tourist orientated Rome is...

What started out as an enjoyable evening ended terribly when one of our bags disappeared at dinner last Saturday evening. The table where we sat happened to be in front of a security camera but the restaurant management claimed that they couldn’t access or play back the tape. Everyday, they asked us to come back tomorrow. So we came back everyday until we were told that we needed a police report to view the video. They claimed that the security company would not send anyone to check the tape without a police report. We had not accused anyone of stealing the bag and were very civil and reasonable throughout the whole process. All we wanted was to access the camera footage to help us understand how the bag and our IDs, credit cards and personal belongings disappeared. It is a reasonable request and it should be the restaurants priority to get to the bottom of this. As if losing our bag wasn’t bad enough, the restaurant’s unwillingness to cooperate ruined our...