Romeow Cat Bistrot — Restaurant in Rome

I had the misfortune of having dinner at this cafe about10 days ago, that is in late January 2024.

This is quite an ordinary place, trying to impress as a "unique" cat cafe, but miserably failing. Notice the following. We had our reservation for 2000 h (8:00 PM). We, party of five, arrived 5 minutes earlier only to face locked doors! Along with 7-8 other people already waiting outside we had to wait in the cold of the winter for 20 minutes though the staff of the cafe were inside and could easily see the crowd behind the locked doors shivering in the cold. Not a word of apology for this unacceptable lack of punctuality and disrespect to the guests. Forget about apology; the front woman (manager?) rudely questioned me why I had entered along with my wife and one of my two daughters instead of entering in pairs...so that the cats would not run away and out! And this, despite the double door entrance, a foyer, and absolutely no cats in view! She actually started her rude remarks with the question "Do you speak English?" in a broken English with a thick Italian accent, of course! I responded: "A little!", and she started a mini sermon re the rules and regulations in her cafe and that we MUST obey them if we attend this cafe. The only reason I didn't turn my back and leave the place was the fact that my daughter had arranged this and I didn't wish to ruin the night for her. Plain, simple and honest. There were only 6 cats in this cafe: though cute, they were the laziest cats I've ever seen in my life..I couldn't imagine how on earth one or more might escape with the three of us entering in less than two seconds through two doors and a foyer. For the reader's information, "cat cafe"s, originated in Taiwan. They then quickly spread all over the world but these guys in Rome seem to be under the impression they are THE cat cafe..."the one and only"!! In Montreal where my son lives, in Toronto where I live, and in Vancouver, among other cities in Canada, we have cat cafes, too, with the number of cats usually between 8-15. I was not hungry and I wished to have only a hot soup (especially after 20 minutes of waiting in the cold). Yep, you guessed it: No soup on the menu! As if things weren't bad enough, the waitress tells me I cannot order only a "starter" (let alone they had no soup). She tells me I MUST order a main dish! I said "I don't wish to have a main course dish; you just go ahead and charge me! It's ok with me"! I really meant it. To my astonishment, the waitress declined, saying "it's not a matter of money....the main course MUST be ordered!" with the most awkward, artificial smile on her face, obviously lying. Evidently embarrassed seeing that I was prepared to pay the money without having the food, she just brought up the most ridiculous excuse saying it was yet another cafe rule! I said: "Ok then, bring me the first item on the list of your main courses, whatever that is"! And she did exactly that!! The food she brought (I have no clue to this date what it was; I only know it was made up of some noodle-like vegan stuff, and brown in color) tasted awful. I could only taste a bit and put it aside. In all fairness, my younger daughter -she's strictly vegan- did like the food in this cafe although she didn't like the taste of the item brought for me either! The tab? 150 Euros for 5 people. Not worth it at all. The cats were so few and so lazy, there was an outright ridiculous line up (sort of) to pet the one or two cats which bothered to come around and mingle a bit!! Now, naturally, I have nothing against the cats (indeed, I love cats) but they were just too few in number.

All in all, a horrible experience. Worst (even worse than the food) was the rudeness of the staff, especially the woman in the front who, with the air of a schoolmaster of the 19th century, seemed to be trying to teach a group of underage students about some exotic animals called "cats"! Just pathetic. Strongly advise AGAINST wasting your time and money...

READ THIS IF YOU LOVE CATS and think that's enough of a reason to go. Let's start with the positives. For vegans, the menu represents a decent array of culinary choices. But some dishes fall very, very flat. One dish was pushed by the rude waitress (more later on her) that if you love tuna, you will love the dish. My son tried it on her recommendation and commented it tasted like skin. To me they tasted like Steakums. I had ravioli which was a decent option. Fairly flavorful. The atmosphere was lively. We arrived for 8pm reservations, saw a few cats, who then quickly left the main dining area. By the time we left, the dining room was packed which for the expensive meal means good business. We didn't interact with the cats much (we have 5, we know they like their privacy). Having been to cat cafes in Montreal and Vancouver which are far superior, this one barely qualifies and in hindsight is not enough of a reason to go. The biggest negative is the pushy and rude waitress. The one with the septum, not the other one who seemed pleasant enough. She conned us into getting a starter even though we didn't want one. She conned us with the "if you love tuna" dish, and when she tried to con us into dessert, we had to repeat ourselves several times we didn't want any. From that point, if we wanted her attention, she would walk by and turn her face away in avoidance (we watched this happen several times to confirm it wasn't a fluke). We asked the other waitress for our check, saw her tell our rude waitress and then watched her again walk back and forth multiple times with her head turned away from us. We also observed her rudeness to other patrons with a fake smile, then eye roll. How is she still employed here? We finally had to go to the counter to get our check and pay and she saw us coming toward her and she turned away. Oh, and if you want to throw up your vegan dishes head to the restroom for what can only be described as pungent dumpster smell of human waste left in the sun for 30 days. Avoid at all costs. If the waitress was gone, and there were a few more cats, this would have rated more highly. Food 2 stars, Service 0 stars,...

What can i say? I was very excited to try this place as it is challenging in this Big City to find a Vegan restaurant.. Visiting Rome, we drove from very far and when we arrived at 6:30pm, to our surprise, we were able to order only a single choice of sandwich, smoothies, some desserts, coffees and tea, as they told us the kitchen would open at 8pm but only for people who made reservations..also we were schooled by one of the owners, I suppose, on their very strict hours of operations. So if you don’t want to be rushed away or like us left hungry, be sure to go through their website and look very carefully to find the long list of rules (after we were told so, we started our search and found the hidden info list in the ‘contacts’ page). With no other options left or offered, we were rushed to order by the waiter and the four of us choose the only available sandwich on the menu. We received 2 slices of gummy segale bread, (not even warmed or toasted) few leafs of arugula inside, a slices of avocado, a spread of olive pate and a sun-dried tomato, along with the house filtered water, with a total of €30.. No comment on the cats wondering all over the place while you are eating your food. Unfortunately, an unpleasant and disappointing experience..not uncommon by reading all the other negative feedback left from other guests who had a very similar treatment. My suggestion to this business is to update their web/google page and show their rules/hours and reservation requirements in a much more friendly and visible way, so the customers could have a better understanding of the options offered by this otherwise confusing Breakfast/Cafe/Bistro/Restaurant for...