Hosteria La Stazione — Restaurant in Rome

We recently returned from a vacation in Rome and stayed at the Independent just a few doors down from this place. We decided to try it because it was so close by.

Everything about the experience was pretty awful. First, the waiter was rude - there was no greeting, he actually didnt say a single word to us. He just walked up to our table with his pad and paper and stared at us until we ordered. Didn't acknowledge us or respond or anything. Anyway, my husband ordered the spinach ravioli and I got the lasagna. Both had very obviously been cooked a long time ago and microwaved - there were cold spots, lava-like hot spots, and the meat sauce for both was chalky. Chalky! How can an Italian restaurant mess up tomato sauce?! We tried the place one more time hoping we just caught them at a bad time. We ordered a box of pastries - which were incredibly expensive (around 20 euro for 4 pastries even though we were told "one euro each" when we asked the price). We got an apricot pastry, a cream horn, a cream filled croissant and a slice of tiramisu. Everything was dry and gross, we had to eat it all with tea just to get it down. And the tiramisu was terrible, it had a pie-like crust (no lady fingers), bland cream filling and literally zero espresso flavor.

They also do not accept credit cards, so make sure you have cash if you do decide to eat here. There's an ATM...

1. Never go to restaurants that beg you to come in. I knew better but my hubby was hungry
2. waiter was over complementary In a fake way
3. they gave Italian speakers better food. I ordered brushetta and they gave me Pizza sauce on bread with mozzarella but the Italian speaking gentleman who also ordered it got fresh tomatoes and basil. Then I got a lame excuse that he ordered it correctly and kitchen messed it up (but u still brought it out??)
4. mussels with clams was so salty it was almost inedible
5. they over charged on brushetta by $2,00 eu : the bass my husband ordered was overcharged by $11,00 eu , the spinach was over charged by $3,00 eu and then they added a ‘Pane” charge of $4,00 eu which they claimed meant city tax instead of bread.
6. then when my husband went to bathroom “waiter whispers in my ear “you like me so tip me”.. but was quiet as a church mouse when my husband got back
7. same waiter kept waving from the window, like some weirdo
8. anyways I paid the over charges, I’m not going to sit in a restaurant and argue BUT I won’t be back..
9. everything wasn’t horrible.. the ambience is gorgeous and my Octopus was tasty but for $18,00 eu i expected more than two tentacles cut in half ( to look like four) and fanned over a baby serving of pureed potatoes. Any ways,...

Restaurant LOOKS good, but that's where any compliments end. Went as a group of 5. After being told meat and fish meals were not being served we all settled on Carbonara, except for one breakfast. We asked about burgers, we were told they were out.

While we waited we saw a burger come out, and they returned and said the breakfast couldn't come with orange juice, because they were out. Breakfast came with tea instead.

We then waited at least an hour for 5 pastas.

We finally got our Carbonara, and every one of them were luke warm bordering cold. The middle was almost warm. Noodles were cooked well I guess. But cold none the less.

Then we got the bill: they charged us a few euro more for the breakfast because of the tea substitute, and charged for the wrong (more expensive) breakfast. They charged us for a bottle of water we didn't order (asked for 2, paid for 3), and for table bread we never recieved or asked for. Over all we probably got fleeced an extra 15-20 euro, and they wouldn't budge when we approached them about any of it.

Not only is the food here microwave quality, but the people who work here are crooks. Go to the train station MacDonalds instead. Or...