Vini & Cucina Blasi — Restaurant in Rome

My first ever 1 star review. Horrible staff who argued with me, I'm 19 years old, and my shy 58 year old mother. Tricked us into spending more and tricked us out of food, very upsetting experience.

Was attracted in by the sign. Then was lied to about what pasta dishes were included in the €16 lunch menu but didn't find out until after when they charged us €18. Had to repeated show the two women staff who served us this picture of the sign outside, they even went out to refer to it so they clearly didn't know their menu.

When the tiramisu came they brought us one to share, I kindly reminded them that me and my mother were both having the lunch menu separately, so we needed another tiramisu, which they argued and begrudgingly brought us. Halfway through we realised the second tiramisu they gave us did not have any sponge or liquor, it was just the cream! This happened to be my mother's one and she was cheated out of what we ordered! Also as we walked out, we realised the limoncelo portion they gave us was considerably smaller than other people's!

Very upsetting as this was a lunch I was paying for, and I had to face confrontation and questions and downright lies about what was included in the lunch menu, tricking me to spend more for lower quality and less food!

I felt bad for my mother as she is not one to send food back or confront issues, so I have to do it on her behalf and I am naturally very shy myself like her. To be ganged up on by two staff, be given multiple filthy looks from them being the till and left waiting quite long between courses was not the service I expected. Very nice when you first walk in, but as soon as you bring up something the ladies turn very guarded and argumentative. Wish I'd never come here to eat.

You might have a good experience, but from how bad my experience left me feeling, I would say please give this place a miss. I'm sure there are several other restaurants near by who will treat you with genuine respect, so best not to take the risk I would say! Especially if you think you look quite tourist-y, I can't say for sure that it wasn't a factor which determined our treatment. Italians on another table seemed to be treated very well, while they left me and my mother - who are British - feeling very uncomfortable. And that's saying something as I am not easily phased by things! But this treatment was repetitive and shocking towards my and my mother.

(Also walked past two days later and the lunch menu was taken down, so clearly they knew that they didn't know how to operate a simple...

The service was unlike the rest of our trip in Rome. They quickly ushered us and brought all the food at once, my pasta was indicated as homemade special of the day (but it wasn’t)and the appetizer was not as pictured and the staff stands out front, upwind of customers smoking. When asked at the end of the night by the manager if everything was good, I was honest, and his response didn’t help - he asked “did you tell her to bring not bring it all at once” and I was kind of taken back…. That shouldn’t need to be said. Do we need to specify that we want salad and appetizer beforehand? The table was small and couldn’t accommodate.

The “specials” apparently all but the one I ordered are homade but mine was not homemade. I always engage the server to ask for help in deciding on a dish and I had it down to something else and she pointed to the specials of the day and that they were homemade and authentic. It was a pivot from the mozzarella pizza I had been eyeing up so I asked if I could have mozzarella on it and she said no but because it is a “simple authentic Italian dish not too many things and spicy” and so I went with it and then also ordered the caprese appetizer. It is pictured with basil on their menu, and I assume it to have basil when I order it, but it came with arugala. When I asked about basil she said no. The pasta was lackluster and garlicky but not in any way notable. Then a staff member was smoking upwind of us outside as they tried to usher in more guests. My husband wanted a side Caesar salad (no chicken) and they tried to charge him the full amount with the one with the chicken on it. When I mentioned all this to her at the end she made it a grand gesture to get us “lemonchillo on the house” instead of addressing the issues - I guess that is a nice gesture but we all know that a lot of local restaurants give lemonchello shots at the end of the night on the house.

It was not a great experience and I...

Unfortunately we had a very bad experience at this restaurant. We decided to eat here as a group of 4 people based on the google rating and some reviews. The staff are very friendly, but we ordered an appetiser to share and the burrata wasn't fresh, the first disappointment of the night. We had to wait more than 45 minutes for the next dishes and although they gave us some cheese to make us wait a little longer, we were already quite annoyed because they gave us very false excuses (that the pizza and gluten free pasta would take longer etc etc). After 45-50 minutes the dishes arrived and we hoped they would be good, but NO, we ordered two carbonara pastas, one gluten free and the other normal, which were not good (better my friend makes it at home), but the icing on the cake was the gluten free pizza, yes the one that supposedly took longer because it was gluten free, it was FATAL, it was raw and clearly not a homemade pizza, it was frozen, it was inedible because even the tomato sauce was not good. The staff, aware of our dissatisfaction, tried to assuage our anger with a glass of wine, but the truth is that a glass of wine on the house could not assuage our sadness at having lost one of our long awaited dinners in Rome in this way. I am very sorry, but the review will reflect my...