L'Insalata Ricca - Largo dei Chiavari | Roma — Restaurant in Rome

If you’re looking for Italian food similar to Sbarro this is the place to go. The pizzas (Margherita and Margherita di Buffalo) were all severly undercooked, to the point where the cheese had not even melted and there were no signs of basil or oregano on either. I understand the Roman style for pasta is al dente, but the Bolognese was seemingly cooked for about 3 minutes, had little sauce, and even less meat. The fact that my Canadian mother makes a better bolognese is extremely concerning. Furthermore, one of my friend got the Carbonara, and after two bites ran to the bathroom and threw up.

When the owner/manager came over to ask us why none of us had eaten, we told him we all felt sick and he decided to yell at us for about 15 minutes and blame us for his food being terrible. I am not a picky eater and I eat/enjoy Italian food but this was the worst experience I’ve ever had at a restaurant. I feel like we would’ve gotten a better cultural experience at the Italian menu McDonald’s.

The servers were also completely useless. I understand they don’t speak English and the translating was fine, but they ignored us for the first half an hour, then proceeded to ask us if we were finished eating about every 5 minutes after that. The busser actually tried to grab one of the plates of pizza my friend was choking down when it still had half of a pie left.

Overall, for our last meal in Rome I don’t think we could’ve had a worse experience so I hope others avoid the same fate and go...

Disappointing experience. The food was terrible. I had spaghetti with tomato sauce and basil because they did not have eggplant parmesan (it said on the menu, "when available," so, I had a backup just in case. The sauce tasted like a canned or jarred sauce. There was one sad leaf of basil sitting on top of the pile of spaghetti. My sister ordered a Mojito and she had to return it... twice. There was no lime or peppermint flavor, and they used water instead of club soda or sprite. My niece's gnocchi was blah. My sister said her salad was excellent. We were asked if we wanted bread, and we said, "Sure." We got a basket of flat, stale, triangular stuff that was awful. I asked for some olive oil (twice) to dunk it in to make it palletable. It didn't help. The waiter to his credit noted we were not eating it, so he brought over a basket of the same stuff, but this basket was fresher and warm. It was fair. As we were finishing our meal, I noted that baskets of REAL bread were being served to folks who had recently sat down for a meal. We had been in Italy for a week at this point, and it was our first disappointing meal. I don't like to post negative things; however, I felt this needed to be shared because there is some AMAZING food in Rome, but this is NOT one of them. We chose this one because my sister misread the food app reviews. She thought it was 9/10. It is actually the restaurant next to it, FIORE, that had 9/10. Skip this one. The staff were attentive...

We think this restaurant is an imitation of a much nicer authentic italian restaurant with the same name nearby. I watched multiple people at other tables leave in frustration with unfinished meals, our food was okay, but not great... Bruscetta served on a slice of toast and cheese in croquettes not quite melted, our pasta mains were cold and it tasted like dried pasta with jar sauce. If you order sautéed vegetables, then expect to receive a plate of wilted spinach. Bottled water came open and we suspect it was just from the tap, they charged us for 1 litre but we were given a smaller bottle.

The service was mixed, with staff being friendly and knowledgeable of their menu, but quite sassy at points and not very organised so we were being served by 5 people at once.

Positives: Aperol spritz was strong and tasty, served with a slice of watermelon which was weird but nice. The servers were understanding about vegan options although the menu can be misleading, and the options aren't that great. They took our "sautéed vegetables" off the bill when we returned it.

If the food was a bit cheaper it would be okay for what it is, but for the price it could have been better.

Overall if you are after authentic italian food and good vegan options, maybe go to the place...