San Giovanni Restaurant — Restaurant in Scala

The view is obviously what is going for this venue. Add the fact that it's one of two only restaurant options available up here in this little hamlet. I'm afraid that the owner is heavily leveraging these facts and unfortunately not attempting to make a greater baseline effort. That or he just can't get good help. The food was on par with what I'd eventually come to expect from the majority of Italian restaurants. Mediocre food that is. At the time of this writing, this restaurant has a 4.5 star rating. After nearly four weeks travelling east coast to west coast, North Rome to southern Sicily and trying many top rated restaurants, I've personally come to my own realization that Italy rating calibration requires a 0.8 - 1.0 star deduction from the posted rating to make it align with top international city restaurant ratings. For example this restaurant would be at most a 3.2 - 3.5 in say Toronto. Or a max 4 in NY or California. Our waiter (a gentlemen) approached our table by greeting us with a sideways glance (I'm not sure what was more important than looking at me in the eyes at that moment) and not even attempting to crack a smile. His local wine reco was an amalfi bottle that the rest of my family said was like vinegar (i still drank it). At €35 for the bottle we felt robbed. The food was unmemorable. Honestly, i can't remember it it was that meh. Come here for the view. Bring low expectations and you...

If you’re staying in Pontone, you have no other options… The staff has never read anything about customer service. It took a while for us to be acknowledged. The waiter didn’t want to be there or to help us. She would speak to us with her arms crossed (it was a very hot day!!) Despite I asked to keep the menu on my table, and walked into the restaurant (we had a table on the deck) to get the menu back, the menu kept being “stolen” from our table from the waiters: 3 times. I would’ve ordered more! We had to ask for salt and pepper for the table, and they were both taken away from our table while we were still eating, as new guests asked for it. After we finished our meal, we were still finishing our drinks, and I understand that they want to have people gone, but there were several free tables and we were asked if we wanted to”anything else” three times by the same person in 5 minutes… not good enough. The food and the atmosphere was good though. Such a shame the staff don’t seem...

Absolutely terrible experience. The place was infested with flies and bugs — we couldn’t even sit for more than five minutes. My girlfriend had five bugs in her hair at once. When we politely explained the situation and said we couldn’t stay, they insisted we pay for an entire bottle we had just opened.

To make matters worse, one of the staff — a very rude man — threw a tray at me when I said we wouldn’t be coming back. We even offered to pay for the two glasses (which we never drank because bugs landed in them aswell). We were met with aggression instead of understanding.

Disgusting hygiene, unacceptable service, and overall a deeply uncomfortable experience....