Risotteria Melotti Roma — Restaurant in Rome

The service was nice so I feel bad for leaving a bad review for the food, but the dishes didn’t live up to our expectations. We expected to get some delicious risotto, as it is an italian dish at heart and the restaurant advertised as having specialized in risotto.

The starter course of zucchini rolls was served cold and the rice crumble wasn’t crunchy nor tasty. Also it was quite small in relation to the 8€ price.

The ”Norma” risotto with aubergine, tomato and cheese tasted quite bland. It lacked salt, flavour and finesse. It tasted like the processed risotto you could get from a supermarket aisle at 2€.

The daily special risotto with saffron and zucchini flowers sounded really good but the rice was more undercooked than al dente, and the flavour was bleak. Yes, there was saffron and zucchini flower but the portion was too big and didn’t have enough flavor, as if there was no parmigiano, no butter or none of the things that usually make a risotto tasty. It tasted more like the risotto you make at home but don’t quite succeed.

They served extra ”parmigiano” that came in a plastic bag and was actually Grana Padano.

Based on the experiences of the starter and the main course we didn’t want to try the rice based desserts, and we weren’t the only customers ordering just an espresso.

On top of all this, the restaurant brought us rice foccacia and rice cakes that we thought were complimenrary but ended up on the bill - we didn’t ask for it! The foccacia was too spongy and yet somehow too dry and tastekess and the rice cakes seemed like they were taken out of a Friggs package.

Overall I wouldn’t recommend the dishes we had, but maybe some other dishes were more tasty than the...

The place seemed nice at first, but unfortunately as many other reviews also confirm, the service is horrendous to such an extent that I and my family felt very unwelcome. The staff were inattentive (we were ignored for 10 min straight after finishing the main course, even though the place was practically empty) and argued over their own mistake (spilled beer all over our table and my boyfriend's clothes). We could easily forgive the accident, but when we wanted to give feedback about being overlooked and feeling unwelcome, the waiter who spoke fluent English the whole evening suddenly couldn't understand a single word we were saying. In the end, we did end up paying only half of the bill, but I'm anxious whether the dark beer will wash out of the clothes, and sadly I don't think the waiters understood why we were upset at all. As for the food itself, it was good. Rice a bit more al dente, but we didn't mind. The arancini starter was delicious, hot and full of cheese. The salami-cheese board with cherry jam was really yummy too. However, I think that you can get the same food with much better service...

We ate here as it was down the stairs from out apartment, but were not impressed. The best part of our meal was the arancini. We ordered some arancini and that was great, but the risotto was below average. We ordered a lemon/shrimp risotto and it had very faint hint of shrimp and mostly acidic flavor, but I guess that the chef did not invite the shrimp to the kitchen as there was no shrimp to be found in the dish. The pesto one was ok, and the one with minced pork and veal was no different than the lemon/shrimp one (faint pork flavor). I guess that the veal and pork were also not invited as minced or not there was no meat to be found in the dish. If you decide to give this place a try, I'd recommend you order the arancini, enjoy it, and go have a meal somewhere else. The service was not memorable either and we waited about 40 min to get our food. The restaurant was not busy... in fact we were in Rome for 2 weeks in the same apartment and this place was never busy... this should have been a hint... Don't waste...