Da Meo Patacca — Restaurant in Rome

Honestly, this place was a bit of a let down. The building and decor was fantastic, the ambiance was certainly that of an old Roman tavern and the music was lovely. Unfortunately, that is where the positives end!

Firstly, let me say that we are a family of foodies, 3 of us our chefs, and our Italian holiday pictures mostly consist of the fantastic food we have enjoyed while traveling in Italy. This place is NOT for those looking for excellent food, it is a massive tourist spot(trap) and we mistakenly took the booked house to mean that the food was gonna be 5* - it IS worthwhile for those who care more about the ambiance, music and old historical artifacts.

When we sat down, there was live music being played a few feet from us. Despite that, our very rude waiter (he had an attitude which said, "I hate my job, I hate my life, what the f* do u want to eat??!!?" ) He came up and tried to take our order while the music was playing feet from us, he couldn't hear us, we couldn't hear him and all he had to do was wait and take our order between songs. He was clearly unhappy and it made him a very poor waiter.

The food, while totally believable as old-timey Roman fare, was highly under seasoned, and the menu wasn't really accurate in its English translation. I ordered wild boar with maise porridge. Boar and Polenta, but the word porridge made me think it would be a looser and well seasoned Polenta. Instead I got a small bar of totally fried Polenta that was really hard and made without the tiniest pinch of salt or any other seasoning. And my wild boar was essentially a tomatoes pasta sauce with chunks of boar in it, without the pasta. Because of how it was written, I thought I was ordering something without tomatoes because I was already sick to my stomach so I was staying away from any ragout or tomatoes based pasta dishes.

Everything we ordered was under seasoned and under whelming, including the Roman artichokes, which I was so excited about!

Oh, and despite all the fresh porcine mushrooms being sold fresh on almost every corner in Rome while we've been here, because it's porcine season, they used dried shiitake mushrooms in a dish normally served with a lemon or white wine sauce. Veal scallopina, which was very odd and exceedingly not authentic.

Despite not eating my food, our waiter never really came back to check in on us, we ran out of drinks long before we were ready to leave and when we asked for takeaway boxes he brought one box for multiple dishes, including my boar spaghetti sauce which would contaminate all the other left overs. I sent him back for another box and it took almost 20minutes waiting for our check before he even brought it to our table, then more waiting before we got our change. Would have been fine if our waiter was nice, helpful or polite -...

I came with my husband’s group of study abroad students (we’re from the Chicago area). I am gluten free and the other study abroad professor is vegetarian. Everyone in the party without a special diet had a very nice dinner, except for a couple of picky eaters. The servers seemed to be under the impression that I did not eat meat or cheese, when our travel coordinator had made it clear when she made the reservation the distinction that one person was vegetarian and one was gluten free. The first course was bruschetta and after the server had been reminded that I was gf when he tried to give me a regular plate. When I finally received my gf dish as everyone else was finishing theirs, I had only tomatoes and oil on a halved gf roll with some olives rolling around on the plate. I had no ham, cheese, or mozzarella like everyone else. Our coordinator asked in Italian if I could get the same as the others and they only brought me the cheeses. The second course (pasta) was a plate of undercooked gf penne with no meat once again. I wanted to say something before the meat course that was next so I told a server in English that I eat meat. My husband even pulled it up on Google translate in big letters in Italian to be clear of any confusion. The server went back to the kitchen and returned a few minutes later speaking in Italian with an angry voice to our coordinator and looking at me. I don’t know why she was so angry but she wanted to know if I wanted meat or fish. I told her whatever meat everyone else was having in a gf version and she stomped back off to the kitchen. I got a piece of what I guess was veal like everyone else with no ham again. The vegetables and potatoes were the same, so I appreciated the effort. For dessert, everyone had a delicious tiramisu and I had a cup of mixed fruit.

After all of these details, I would say that for the price of this place, they should have known better how to treat people with dietary differences. The restaurant we visited last year with the students told me before each and every course the choices I had and how they could modify the dishes, even the dessert course. There is never a reason for a server to have an attitude over someone simply asking for meat to be added to a dish. The music here was entertaining, the musicians were friendly, and the location was beautiful, but all that means nothing without proper...

I will always remember the experience at Da Meo Patacca, because it was easily the worst service I have ever received at a restaurant. It was sad because I had been very excited to dine at the same restaurant my father did when he was in the Navy during the 1960’s.

We were obviously stereotyped negatively as Americans right away. Instead of being seated in the main dining room, where there was lively music and other guests, we were put alone in a second room. When I asked if we could be seated in the other room, the host who are seating us annoyingly asked “What you dont like this room?!”. I said “No of course the other room is more fun.” He then angrily grabbed our menus and led us back to the main room. Then for the rest of the night we noticed that he and other servers would laugh at us and point from the kitchen. I could hear them say “...Americanos...” Our new waiter was not friendly at all and barely would talk to us. I noticed halfway through our meal that everyone else in the restaurant had been brought water and we had not been. I asked if we too could have water in our waiter took an extra 30 minutes to bring it, again he was obviously annoyed. The food was okay, but I was now so annoyed that I barely wanted to wanted. When we finally went to pay we had someone else come and deliver the bill. This new gentleman asked if my credit card would go through. It was like he was assuming I did not have enough money to pay. Basically every chance that the restaurant employees had a chance to be rude to us, they were.

Now I’m sure there are tourists that dine at the restaurant and are sometimes rude themselves, too loud etc. However this was not us, we were friendly polite and did nothing to encourage such poor service.

The food was just okay.

Such a shame that this had to be one of our few interactions with the...