Ristorante Pizzeria da Michele — Restaurant in Rome

Don't be fooled by the pleasant firm on the wall, this is not a nice place to eat. We waited for 30 minutes for someone to take our orders (it was pretty crowded, but by that time only one of us was hungry and ordered a pizza, and the others decided to drink some wine, and i asked for a coffee. The guy almost screamed at me that there is no coffee and left me with my mouth open. The food came fast, but so comes our dissapointment. 3 of the 4 wine glasses had lipstick and/or grease stains on them. We tried to ignore that, and used the watter glases instead. Then the circus unleashed. One girl waiter came with four empty plates. I explained we only need one, then the large pizza came. The wine was ok, but our friend had to wait about ten more minutes for a knife and fork (it was not cut, so she could not eat it warm). The older waiter, probably the owner, came and put a hand on one of us explaining in italian that food was mandatory, and he politely explained he was not hungry, just wants a nice drink. He continued in italian, wich only i understood, to offend him by saying that if he knew we would not all eat, he would have not gave us a table or tell us te leave right away. If the first waiter had said something when he took the order, it would have been fine, we would have left so they can use the table, ore eat some salad or desert, but he did not, he just nodded and left. He kept rolling his eyes when he brought the wine and DIRTY glasses, but no one said a thing about this pollicy that we did not know about. Afther this verry rude discusion that he did not get an answer to, becaus i did not translate his rude observations, they came with 4 knives and 2 forks, like mokking us for eating just one pizza (that our friend ate only a half because they were treating us so bad and was already cold because they were no serving). We talked about leaving a review and the older guy heard, so he came and politely apologized and begged for us not to, and seemed sincere. I told him in italian that what he did ruined our pleasant night, we asked for the check, and we were going to continue our eaving in another place after finishing the wine. The check did not came for 30 minutes, we asked again, and another waiter asked what was wrong, because it was verry obvios we had a bad experience. I explained the dirty glasses (politely not mencioning the dirty table cloth), and the not nice attitude of the other servers that intencionally offended us, but we were standing and a lady manager came to ask what it is about. She was verry arrogant and talked a little loud, telling me it was our fault that we did not guessed this policy of only serving people that eat. Suddenly, there was this official rule of the place, byti was supposed to read it in the stars. "There are plenty of restaurants that accept you just drinking, but this one does not". "Why did they not tell us in the first place", i asked? "Oh, it was a misscommunication". "Then why did they treat us that bad?" "Because we are serving food, not just drinks. It is not written anywhere, i understand we should have told you beforehand, but Noooooo, we don't just serve drinks" The staff gangs up on you WHILE the actually admit you are right not to have a cristall ball in your backpocket for guessing theyr pollicy. Imagine how other 4 tables next to us felt, the guy sitting 30 cm from me and his friend only had a glass of watter and one cola (about 3.5 Euro). There was also a lady with a glass of wine and one bottle of water that was listening to our argument (she was there for over an hour). I suspect that only tourist from outside Italy are not welcome here, but there is no sign of that in sight. The other people serving just drinks recieved some kind of a bad joke from the same waiter. Terryble experience, in a dirty neighbourhood, with lots of homeless people sleeping next to this place and the tables are on the sidewalk that is full of garbage. 10 metters from the tables smells like piss. Avoid at all costs, they will ruin your night AND...

I got the Funghi Pizza here, and I thought it was quite good This was definitely a Roman-style pizza, as the crust was quite thin, harder, and crunchy

The cheese on the pizza had the perfect ratio to the amount of tomato sauce, and it was melted quite well. The cheese even extended all the way to the crust, which made it so that every bite up to that point was quite enjoyable. I also quite liked the mushrooms. The placing of these was a bit odd - they were missing from the top right but present everywhere else - but what I absolutely loved was that there were so many of them, to the point that they occupied real estate in every single bite. These tasted super fresh, were cooked really well, and added a ton to my overall enjoyment of the pizza

Overall, this pizza was really good, and at a reasonable cost. 9/10

I do want to mention one thing, though. When ordering, I asked if the carbonara could be made without bacon, since we're vegetarians. The waiter looked at me like I just shot his dog. After some clear indignation on his face, he responded with "No....It's not possible" and looked disgusted that someone would even ask such a question. He didn't have a great attitude for the rest of the time we were there

I get it that Italy has a culture of keeping dishes the way they were supposed to be made. However, it would a lot better if you would politely decline rather than acting shocked that a vegetarian would like to try a dish but without the meat. It's not like I asked to remove the egg from a carbonara - Bacon is simply just a topping to the dish and can easily be removed without much extra work from the chef. I've ordered carbonara without bacon at two other restaurants in Rome, and both of them happily obliged my request - and it was fantastic both times. There's nothing special about your restaurant in appearing more 'traditional' when fulfilling such a request can be done without...

AVOID.

Ambience: very very bright, not cosy - was like at a train station

Food: average

Price: reasonable

Service: terrible. Even though we were the first ones there when it opened, they sat us at the worst table - right in the way, and the waiters often stood right next to our table, just chatting to each other but were RIGHT there (there was not a lot of room to walk next to the table). We were asked if we wanted bread, and got some that was probably bought yesterday (for 3€). Nothing to dip it in, no butter; just stale bread (and breadsticks from a packet).

When our meal came, we were given a little pot of parmesan. Neither of us used it. Then one of us did, and IMMEDIATELY, the waiter who had been sitting, watching us eat, stood up and took the parmesan away. Not to give to another table - to put it next to the other three on the shelf.

Because we felt like we were being watched the whole time, we didn't want dessert or coffee, so asked for the bill, which came pretty quickly (obviously they just wanted us out of there, even though the restaurant wasn't full - maybe they just don't like tourists). We put the money on the table (50€), and it was swiftly taken by the waiter who took the parmesan. We waited and he came back past - with no change. We waited for the next time he came past - again with no change. The third time he actually brought our change and - surprisingly - it was actually correct.

If you're a tourist in Rome, do not visit here. There are much better...