Osteria Del Gusto — Restaurant in Rome

We just left this restaurant. It was a terrible experience from the time we entered the door when they seated the people behind us first. Afterward, we made a language barrier blunder (it happens- we always laugh it off) and the waiter, that appeared to be a supervisor, was quite rude with us, then laughed at us (I wish I was misunderstanding... but it was blatantly obvious) along with another customer- not including us at all. It was just... disheartening. The spaghetti noodles were tough, Veal was dry. There were only two tables seated at any given time in the restaurant (which probably should have been our FIRST clue) and we were rarely checked on. I am so happy that Italy is opening back up to tourists. It just makes me really sad that this was our last dinner experience here in Roma. The entire world has been through a terrible ordeal. We’d like to start traveling and having fun again. If you’d rather have good service and avoid getting laughed AT (not with)... go somewhere else. You can always learn to make better food. But kindness is a difficult skill to practice if you’re busy laughing at your...

WOW this place is bad. To start with, service is pretty average (41 minutes for food to arrive), though at least mildly friendly. It's hot inside, and you can tell how much the proprietors care about their customers for the fact there was a four-top in front of me at which the two daughters and mother were dry coughing continuously - so just the main symptom for the pandemic we're currently in. Cheers for that.

Getting to the food, though. The house wine was extremely vinegar-y (I tasted then discarded it); the sparkling water was completely flat (honestly no idea how this was accomplished - the bottle was opened in front of me); and the pizza. My god. A flavourless grease-pit - it left me feeling queasy, and that's ignoring the 3" white hair that was baked into it. So yes, I paid €18 for a sickly, hairy pizza; vinegar-y wine; and strangely flat water (I'd understand if it was depressed enough at its culinary company to not want to sparkle tbh).

I absolutely cannot understand the positive reviews - this is not a place I could ever...

I got a bit of an education while dining at our fav restaurant in Rome - Osteria Del Gusto - on Via Rasella.

This amazing little spot became our go-to place. We arrived late at night and they were still open, so we devoured four pizzas and enjoyed a porcini spread on bread.

Their menu is quite extensive, with a great number of Italian staples you wouldn't normally see on a small restaurant's menu. One of which was the Osso Buco.

When the Osso Buco came, I had a puzzled look on my face, so the lady thought something was wrong. I explained that what we know of Osso Buco is typically red - tomato-based sauce, with lots of celery, onions, and carrots.

She went on to explain that we aren't wrong, but that is a Northern-Italian style of cooking where they use a lot of tomatoes in staple dishes, while in Lazio and other southern regions, tomatoes used to be scarce so same dishes were cooked differently.

We ended up going there for a third time... we just couldn't get enough of...