Osteria La Pecora Nera — Restaurant in San Gemini

Recommended this restaurant from the local hotel we were staying at. Unfortunately didnt have the best experience. We ordered our food and then were asked what we would like to drink. My wife asked for a cola which they don’t serve… yet no alternative given. My friends just ordered water and I asked for a red wine. I then even asked if they had anything such as lemonade etc which again was shot down with a no. Our drinks arrived and I was presented with a full vase of red wine. I mentioned that I only wanted a glass to be returned with “ you should have said “ ( considering my friends had all being asked what they wanted to drink and my wife all replying I thought this would of been obvious and in my defence if the server was unsure maybe they should of asked me - after all I’m the customer ???!!. Anyways onto bread gate - we were served bread in a bag ( yes customary some places) without any plates to start, we were nearly done with the bread when the after thought to put some plates out began. My friends whom are vegans had pretty good food throughout and they were relatively happy with their food. My carbonara was fine very authentic. However my second meal and what my wife had as her main - grilled beef fillet - well I can say I’ve never had such an awful fillet steak in my life - I’ve eaten all over the world previously working with the formula one Grand Prix circuit so I’ve had Italian beef fillet plenty at the likes of San Marino in years previously. The fillet was burnt on the bottom which left a charcoal and a hard crunch bitter taste. The whole fillet had so much fat in it, was it even a fillet. My wife had similar issues with her steak but it was nothing on par with mine. I picked apart what I could and left a deconstructed piece of meat on my plate ever clear for the sever to see and ask me if anything was up. Or how was your meal etc. But no nothing not a word… even when clearing up the half drank glass of red wine that the server accidentally knocked over smashing the glass on the floor. Not a word. They offered to replace the glass of wine and I just explained it was fine and the moment had now gone. We all finished up and I asked for the bill, taking myself to the bar to pay it so we could leave. The server reduced my bill by 2 euro to compensate the wine that was knocked over- I chuckled and was polite just saying I was not bothered what the bill was I was happy to pay to go. Maybe they were having a bad night I don’t know. But my personal experience was bad and it so disappointing after being recommended it and also reading all the good reviews online. I hope it was just a blip but for me I would not return as there were so many issues which could have been rectified if the establishment had wanted to put some effort into my...

Good things: Food wise, menu is very interesting and typical of a zone. Pasta was delicious. Bad things: service is ... weird. We found shreds of broken glass on the floor that our dog was about to eat, picked up one piece and gave it to the waiter who said "sorry" and ignored the rest of the glass. We moved the dog to another side and told a different waiter about the glass, he also said "sorry" but ignored the rest of the glass under table🤷After we asked for the conto we waited for another 15-20min although staff was not busy, after which I just went directly there to pay. Was met with quite a strange attitude. (Just to add, we had an Italian with us and we're ordering everything in Italian, and our impression of the service...

Enjoyed most of our meal. We wanted to order the zucchini pasta dish, but was told that it wasn't available and they'd swap it out with mushrooms. What we didn't realize was that basically it was mushrooms and parsley which was an entirely different dish which was "eh."

We also ordered the formaggio starter, but received the full salami and formaggio starter. It was really good, but more food than we wanted. I honestly don't know if it was a mistake or not because there definitely wasn't a language barrier.

Otherwise we enjoyed our meal and evening there! I also heard another guest arrive later than us say that he was told to order the rosé because it was special in some way. Hopefully you'll get the chance to...