Taverna del Seminario — Restaurant in Rome

Avoid this place.

Worst / weirdest dining experience in Rome from our 10 day trip.

My fiance and I were seated and waited 10 minutes before someone took our drink order.

The entire staff seemed to be in some sort of mood from arguing with or being shouted at by the manager on duty.

Everyone was overwhelmed... The restaurant isn't that big... It was clear that training the staff and how to run a place efficiently was just missing.

Our waitress never said hello, please, thank you, or anything you might assume would come from a server's mouth. It was VERY obvious she didn't want to be there.

We ordered the fried sardines and the response was, "that's out." As if a greater explanation or offering of an alternative starter was a bridge too far.

We watched the manager acting erratically while frantically crumpling papers, cleaning off tables, and loudly rambling to herself throughout our meal.

If you are reading this and you're the manager... I'd imagine your first reaction is denial... We watched other bewildered customers stare at you as you stomped around.

I stopped by the bathroom to wash my hands, piss covered floor... Not Water. Absolutely disgusting.

So I ordered a beer.

It got dropped off in front of another table and sat in front of the guy for 5 minutes.

I couldn't tell you if he drank from it but his hand was on it at one point. And it sat in front of him for a while.

I wondered at one point if they had forgotten to put in the order.

Then I watched a different server pick up that same beer from in front of this man and put the beer in front of me.

As the waitress started to walk away, I asked if she just gave me the beer that sat in front of another man for 5 minutes and she "no I didn't."

Lol like what?! I saw you?!?

I laughed and told her I literally just watched her do it.

After a second, she asked me what I expected her to do about it.

And I explained the situation calmly and said I wouldn't be drinking it. She begrudgingly offered to get me another one...

At which point I have no doubt this person walked behind the corner dumped the beer into a different shaped glass and dropped it off without an apology or addressing it.

Whatever, fine. Mistakes happen.

Our food was put in front of us without any words a while later.

Nobody came to check on us.

Zero chance any of the staff asked, "did everything come out okay?" or "how's your meal?"

I got the octopus on a potato pie... The potatoe pie tasted more like polenta but it is what it is.

It was bland and needed salt and pepper.

I couldn't get anyone's attention and eventually got up to get salt and pepper off of a shelf myself.

After we finished our meal, the waitress grabbed the salt and pepper and said nothing... didn't remove our plates or offer dessert or another drink.

We eventually flagged down the waitress for the check.

Then the manager dropped by with check and had the credit card machine to ask how everything was.

This was the same lady who had been shouting at staff and generally acting scattered throughout the evening; super distracting and off-putting.

I was fed up at this point.

We just wanted to leave. I told her it was a stressful meal.

I summarized the beer situation and kept saying it was fine and just asked to pay so we could leave.

She briefly interrogated the waitress who was standing behind me.

The whole thing was really uncomfortable.

Rather than finishing the transaction then and there... she just disappeared to the front.

So eventually we got up and asked again if we could just pay and leave.

If I had never been to a restaurant before but was asked to run one, I'd imagine this would match the overall experience.

We live in Denmark and service here is often bad. But this was a different level.

Everything from start to finish was bizarre and off.

There are so many wonderful places to eat in Rome with friendly staff that appear to genuinely enjoy the job.

Don't go here.

Don't waste a perfectly wonderful potential dinner in Rome in a place that doesn't put...

Every dish was delicious. I sat alone, my party was all sick, and it was late. I believe I made it in just 25 minutes before closing. I stayed in a Hotel around the corner from the Pantheon. I stumbled across this place, promising myself a Roman meal, and praying restaurants were open. I didn’t feel like paying for cellphone service while there, so I relied on Google maps free GPS. As I said, I stumbled into this place, but it was genuinely terrific. -Bruschetta con crema di olive… delicate and tons of Umami, all with fresh ingredients. -Maccheroni all’Amatriciana… like a carbonara plus tomato sauce, made with guanciale, delicious and rich pork fat flavoring with the tenderness of the cheek meat, and well balanced tomato:cheesiness ratio, just making myself drool as I recollect it. -Polpo arrosto servito con tortino di patate… Roast octopus w/ potato pie. I am a foodie, I will eat anything twice, very few things once, and I never turn down an opportunity to try new foods, as I have since I was a kid, I digress, one thing I have ALWAYS enjoyed, was a skillfully-cooked octopus dish in an Italian home. This was next level tender, and packed with flavor. Even if you’re a ‘texture-person’, this will make you question why you dislike the idea of octopus. -Tiramisù Fatto en casa… I can’t find bad tiramisu in Italy. Maybe I’m just super fortunate to be turned of by places that must have the bad tiramisu, or some unknown dessert saviness compass… This was delicious. None of the flavors spiked out above the others, creaminess, cocoa dusting, coffee, etc., perfect end to a great meal.

I went back again the next time I was in Rome. But this meal, my solo eating out, I had time to enjoy the whole meal versus keeping up with group talk and distracted from the actual consuming of the food. But everyone agreed that this place was excellent; a...

We visited Taverna del Seminario last week on a Saturday afternoon. We were really looking forward to the meal as we read so many good reviews about this place. Unfortunately, the service and food were both the worst we've ever experienced.

We placed our name on a list as there was a line. We were told 15-20 min and we were happy to wait. We came back around 15 minutes and stood around, making sure the hostess could see us. We saw people who came in after us get seated, so we approached just to ask for an update. They rudely told us to wait outside and the hostess raised her voice, telling us it wasn't time yet, and yelled that she told us 20 minutes.

When we were seated, they pushed us to sit closer to the table as they had to sit other guests. We were pushed so far against the table that we could barely move our arms to eat. The waitress taking our order was snappy and started raising her voice at us and got visibly frustrated when we had questions about the menu. Food was served slammed on the table and the quality of the super salty food did not make our experience any better.

When we left, we had to shimmy our way out, as they seated more guests super closely to us. In normal conditions, we understood, but this was during Covid as well as just the fact that it was extremely uncomfortable. We understand there are also cultural and language barriers, but we felt like the unfriendly yelling was universally unpleasant in any situation.

We couldn't even finish our food, not just because of the poor taste but the overall experience of being yelled at before and during our meal. It was honestly the worst dining experience...