Trattoria Pizzeria La Tavernetta — Restaurant in Rome

The dining room had the typical charm of a no-frills traditional italian trattoria with some outdoor seating, and more tables in their below ground restaurant. Unfortunately this turned out to be our most disappointing meals in Italy. The menu seemed broad, but I feel it was simply to check boxes of tourist requests.

Of meals our table ordered, only the lasagne was enjoyed. The lamb chops came with salad and grilled vegetables. The lamb chops were mostly bone, had very little meat on it and were a little dry.

The two soups ordered were of a tomato passata base.

These were particularly sad, and bare minimal effort was made. The chicken soup had large chicken chunks in the tomato-based soup, while the vegetable one had the same tomato base combined with frozen vegetables only. The tomato base hadn't even been cooked long enough to dull the sharp acidity. No herbs were added to try and uplift it. The cubed vegetables had lost all their flavour and texture, beans were chewy, others were watery and just unpleasant to eat. Salt and pepper couldn't revive this. Nothing could. So it was barely touched.

When it came to the service, it was a little perfunctory. Waiters weren't particularly attentive or friendly. They checked in once to see if we wanted desserts.

Unfortunately, I would not recommend this restaurant for the food or...

La Tavernetta was the only restaurant that me and my wife actually planned to go, based on the reviews and the veredict was mostly negative.

The initial service was promising, as an employee took us quickly to a 2p table inside the restaurant but after that, it went downhill. It took about 5-10 minutes to get a menu and even more to get our food ordered (something around 20 minutes total). It really felt like they were shortstaffed. Only two employees running here and there, up and down, serving tables in and out.

So when the food came (10-15 minutes more), it was pure disappointment. My 4-Formaggio pizza was sad, lacked taste and the crust was absurdly thin. Now, about my wife's Gnocchi: we're 99% positive that it was the same sold in supermarkets. At least they didn't pour cheese on it, as we requested. Don't get me wrong, the taste was okay, but you don't expect to eat supermarket's Gnocchi in an italian Trattoria.

To top it off, after more delay to get the check, they charged us for the (bad) service. Maybe they're in a bad day, who knows? But this doesn't change our...

My wife and I booked a room in the nearest hotel: San Marco, so the restaurant was an easy pick for the first meal in Italy. The food was always served hot. While we stayed, we ate 4 times at this place and if I'm near this place next time I'll choose it again.

There was only one server, very receptive and went beyond my expectations: one day - two shots of a local liquor, and another day - serving my favorite vegetable soup on two plates. At that time, I did not order the soup, my wife did. But, a day before the server observed that my wife shared the meal with me, so he just brought half of the serving to each of us and explained why. Eventually, he was right: I would've eaten the soup from my wife's plate ☺️ the soup was delicious.

Be aware of the low ceiling at the entrance! The restaurant in the basement.

As a suggestion for improvement: the menu is not that friendly for foreigners, even though almost all of the items have descriptions in English. Please consider a menu with...