Tempio di Bacco | Storico Ristorante — Restaurant in Rome

Feeling jet lagged and needing sleep I was ready for a clean, filling meal. I sat outside & after a brief look at the menu I ordered the seared mackerel fillets on chard. Now, Mackerel is a generally a large fish, I’ve caught them before, and yes usually they’re cut into steaks but hey, maybe they fillet them here, either way it still sounded substantial as a Secondo.

The waitress was a bit taken back that I didn’t want anything else, and that I knew what I wanted so soon. I was then left with an empty table until the meal was ready to be served when there was a rush to set the table.

Then the real disappointment began. There were slivers of fish atop a small green pile. How someone didn’t throw this fish back is beyond me, but they managed to scrape off a few tiny fillets, then fry them to death & lay them on top of the soggy greens. I was shocked that this is their idea of secondo, however I did push on with the dream of sleep so near.

To cut the fish was a toll in itself, so dry having been cooked for far too long. And would you believe no seasoning at all. Actually nothing. The chard (I think that’s what they called the green pile underneath), also completely void of any flavour.

This is by far, hands down the least satisfying meal of my life. Overcooked, tasteless and tiny. Oh and to top it off, it was €19.50 for the displeasure.

There are many, many restaurants in Rome. I’d suggest trying any other one for a...

Despite the first experience at this restaurant being pretty good, our second time was a huge disappointment. The proprietor is inattentive and gives his and his waiters' attention to which ever is the more lucrative table; we were seated prior to a table of six very obnoxious young tourists who all ordered pizza (though it was not on the menu), and we were virtually ignored as soon as they entered the restaurant. The owner scrambled to satisfy them, and we had to raise our voices over theirs, and get up from our table to acquire service at some points. The food was alright, but we've had better versions of the same dishes elsewhere. Finally, they added a 4 euro "coperto" to our bill, which we asked them about. They explained to us that it is for "the table cloth and the bread". We told them that we've never heard of being charged for a table cloth, and that we haven't seen this "coperto" on any bills in Rome. The waitress told us that every restaurant in Rome adds it to their bills. This was dubious to us but being ignorant of Roman customs we unhappily relented and paid the bill. We did some research afterwards and found that in the Lazio Region where Rome is, coperto is actually illegal (with some commentators saying that if it is mentioned on the menu it is permissible). We don't recall seeing it on the menu anywhere. So either it doesn't exist or it is in very fine print; either way it is devious. We won't...

I am a solo diner and ate early, arrived at 5.30pm. It was not busy. I was greeted and seated promptly and pleasantly, and asked immediately if I wanted water, which arrived quickly. Once I closed my menu I was asked if I was ready to order, but was not informed of any specials, which may have changed my mind about what I wanted. Other diners near me were told about the special (after I had already ordered). I ordered a single glass of dry white house wine, and was billed for a glass of Pinot Grigio (8.50), which was the most expensive glass offered on the menu. My order was served fairly quickly...a small but tasty serving of fettuccine with shrimp and zucchini. There was one whole shrimp and one cut up and mixed with the finely diced zucchini and the fettuchini in a light tomato based sauce. It was delicious, although I feel that there could have been more generous amounts of both the shrimp and zucchini for the price of 15€. Once I'd eaten that, I ordered some grilled vegetables (zucchini, eggplant and peppers, which took a very long time to come, and again were only a few small pieces of each, so very expensive (7.50€) for the serving provided.

The food was tasty and it was nice to sit outside to eat on a lovely...