L'Insalata Ricca - Piazza Albania — Restaurant in Rome

Locals welcome. Everyone else left waiting.

Our tour guide highly recommended this place as a local hotspot with good food at reasonable prices. He said the locals love this place and the food is excellent.

As a local, I’m sure that is true.

But as a tourist, we didn’t have that experience.

As soon as we arrived, we were seated at a reserved table since our tour guide had called ahead to make sure we would have a place. We were seated and looked at the menu.

Then we waited. Waited for 30mins while people were seated around us and received drinks and bread bowls and then even food. While we sat and tried to make eye contact with anyone to take our order.

Servers rushed around us and acted as if we didn’t exist. Finally, we were able to get the attention of the host and he pointed us out to someone. Looked at us and walked away.

More waiting.

Someone has deigned to take our order since now a long line of locals is forming and we’re taking up space.

Got our food and drinks pretty quick and we’re able to start refreshing ourselves when 10mins after receiving our food, the server comes over and tries to take our plates! It’s obviously FULL OF FOOD and he’s like “you’re done?” Yes, after once piece of pizza and a bite of bruschetta I’m finished. Sorry that I stopped to take a sip of water. “Obviously, we’re still eating.”

Took a few more bites but by then he’d killed our appetites as well. So now we’re looking for the check. He was so keen on getting us out and now he’s nowhere to be found.

By then our guide had come back to see what the hold up was since this place was supposed to be quick. We’re just sitting there. We waited 25mins before getting up and making our way to the door. Suddenly all the servers are attentive and telling us how to pay.

I’m sure the point was to get us to walk out and go somewhere else. But we were trusting our local guide and wanted to experience real Italian cuisine. Since they serve it with a side of disdain and rudeness, you can keep your huge salad menu and sub par food.

Pasta - 1; Pizza - 5; Bruschetta - 3; Meatballs - 4;...

Awfull place. Worst food ever. Soaked in oil, cold on the outside of the plate and too hot on the inside of the plate. We had the tortellini and the spaghetti a la carbonara. We were hungry when we came in but left without finishing the plate. Sick from the fat and oil that was in the food we did eat. Service was non-existent except for a pointing finger and the questions "what do you want", "cola" and "spaghetti". Those were the exact and only conversations we had with the waiter while we were there. The finger was presented to us as we came in the 'restaurant'. It pointed at a corner where he wanted us. The place was empty except for a family if 3, who were just finishing. The finger was used as he was clearly on the phone talking to someone. Between those intriguing conversations we had with the waiter, he sat at a table in a corner finishing his phonecall, only to watch a Bollywood movie on his phone with the speakers on later. Worst dinner experience and food ever. Price was same as any other place on the other side of the street to circus maximus. Those places are genuine restaurants,...

We ate at this restaurant a couple days ago and had a great experience. Today we returned hoping for the same. We did not receive that. Not only was the service abysmal, I found a hair in my food. It only went downhill for desert. We were told several items weren't available and when we finally found two items we might enjoy, the server returned after an entire 15 minutes to tell us one of those wasn't available after all. The one item we did end up receiving, crème brûleé, was not properly prepared. The creme was cold and crumbly and the sugar was either burned entirely or not melted at all.

in conclusion, I would no longer recommend this restaurant. I'm giving it more than one star because of the service the previous night and because my friends' dishes were fine up...