Marco Martini Roma — Restaurant in Rome

Marco Martini's cuisine is a statement. More than revisiting Italian food, he deconstructs it in a quite interesting way.

We went for the set menu (7 dishes) whose individual dishes might appear as disappointing but when taken together (in the order proposed) were definitely worth it.

Apart from the colour range, the common thread was an intention to leave the ingredients speak for themselves. There was so little seasoning that initially I thought the first dish (spaghetti and razor clams) was rather bland and it took me some time to get used to it. Somehow the experience forced me to reflect about how much I'm used to artificially flavouring my own food by means of salt and oil.

As the menu advanced, some stronger ingredients were added and this translated into an increase in the flavour of the dishes.

The texture of both the razor clams in dish one and the squid in dish two, which was served on a beautiful parsley emulsion and garnished with small fragments of tempura, was flawless. The quality of the texture had me wondering about the cooking technique, and I suspect it might have been sous vide cooking.

While the mignardises were unremarkable, apart from the interesting texture of the carbonara which was served in an eggshell, the dessert was perfect.

We were very impressed by the chef's creativity, his very large range of skills (he seems to master all cooking techniques at an extremely high level), and his artistic sensitivity (visually, the dishes were all stunning). His ability to reconstruct forest fruits (an acorn made of veal liver whose top was made of ground nuts covered with matcha; chestnuts made of chestnut cream) was also very impressive.

The one think I regret is not to have ordered the wine pairing. Since the restaurant is quite expensive, we decided to go for a bottle of wine which, nevertheless, was really, really good and a rare find: a biodynamic red wine "aged" in concrete (rather than oak). Another customer near our table had the wine pairing, and the wines that he was served by the sommelier (who clearly knows what he's doing), made us realise we were wrong in not having gone for that option.

The place is also beautiful: a refreshed old industrial large room with a panelled window wall with lots of plants with long, trailing stems arranged in a way that they appear to cascade downward, giving the impression of a vertical garden on one side of the room.

The service was also great with plenty of friendly waitress and waiters.

A unique experience on the whole.

I don't think, however, this restaurant is for everybody. You need to be a serious foodie (i.e. someone who is interested in things that go beyond flavours) in order to...

Not a Michelin star experience for us. Here is why:

The main course, salted cod, was incredibly salty and inedible (for not just me, but my significant other as well). Apparently, the fish was not soaked prior to cooking to remove the salt and we got it in the cured state. I understand mistakes happen, but this was pretty severe for a restaurant of this caliber.

The response we got was that the chef wanted to cook something else for us which sounded reasonable. We declined and wanted to proceed to the dessert which they obliged. Our server was very professional about it, although he did look a bit surprised.

We made it through the rest of the meal, although the dessert portion was also below expectations which I will describe why later.

In the end, we were surprised that the chef never made a personal appearance to comment, nor did the restaurant do anything other than apologize for the miss. I can live with that, but that's not a Michelin star response to what was a poor experience for us.

So, I can accept errors as they happen all the time, but it was the response to the mistake that really left us questioning the high status of this dining establishment. The price was as advertised (170 for the menu, 75 for the pairings) but it fell way short of meeting expectations.

My background on Michelin star dining is not trivial although I do not claim to be an expert. Lately I have been to JL Studio in Taiwan, La Cime in Osaka, Firns in Taiwan, as well as a few others many years back and this was the first time where the response to something unpleasant was lacking.

Some things were quite good (much of it leading up to the main course) and the quantity of the wine served was impressive. I was particularly impressed with the avocado toast and salmon offering. The pairings up to and including the main course were good. Things got off track during dessert - our impression was that the pairings which were quite sweet, coupled with very sweet desserts, was less than ideal. We did not finish the dessert as it felt overdone on the sugar content especially when combined with the pairing (which was not a wine, but a cocktail as I recall).

Overall, the atmosphere was nice, our server was quite good, but the food fell short and the response to the error was below expectations. Certainly the price doesn't align with the experience in our estimation, especially if I compare it to other Michelin star restaurants that I frequent. I hope they can improve as we wanted it to be a great experience and we want others to...

This was our first Michelin Restaurant and despite the bad reviews I see here, I truly doubt that for a restaurant in Rome, any other Michelin Restaurant does it much better at the same price. The food was unique and mostly great tasting - not every taste suits every person. For example, the welcoming starter with the Carbonara inside the egg shell was to die for, the stuffed zucchini we ordered as a starter was not something we truly enjoyed but, that's on us for not asking what was inside (beef tartar which none of us likes). The pasta as first dish both mine and my girlfriends was amazing and so was the second dish, the dessert we ordered after.

The closing treat was ok with the cotton candy and the small truffles - not bad but didn't knock us from our socks. The wine we ordered was really smooth and lovely and the cocktails at the bar we got afterwards were pretty good too.

All in all, it was a great experience and the "hero" of the night was the amazing service that we got. 3 different waiters, 2 guys and a girl made sure we had everything we needed and were very attentive.

For a total of 7 dishes, 1 bottle of wine and 2 cocktails we payed almost 300 euro which, in my opinion - in Rome, for a Michelin Star Restaurant is more than acceptable.

This place is an experience - not...