Osteria Mariano — Restaurant in Syracuse

Avoid! I have never written a bad restaurant review, but this time I want to prevent others from having a extremely disappointing experience on just about every level. Da Mariano are located in a charming narrow street, seemingly off the beaten track, which was appealing to us. We were relatively early, so got a table straight away. Menus delivered, and drinks order placed extremely quickly. Great, we thought! Then we ordered food: my partner ordered vongole spaghetti, I ordered squid spaghetti. The starter, typical sicilian (salami, cheese, olives) were basically 4 small slices of salami, 4 tiny pieces of cheese, a few olives one of which was partly rotten. Not worth €8, maybe €4! Italian mixed salad was highly resembling a supermarket mixed leaves from a packet, with a few olives thrown on top. Then we waited for our pasta dishes. Despite sitting directly opposite the entrance, we were completely forgotten about. 1 table of about 8 tourists, and 2 tables of 2 each were getting their main courses despite having arrived and ordered after us. We reminded the waiters about our food, who then rushed into the restaurant only to bring 2 pasta dishes one of which was wrong. They then took another 10 minutes to produce a squid ink spaghetti that was so tastless, and showing orange/red oily stains on the side of the bowl, that I could not finish it. I hardly EVER leave food on my plate, but this was just inedible. I questioned this with Mariano, who just lectured me about how Sicilian squid spaghetti is made with tomato! I've eaten this dish in many other places in Italy and Sicily, and it always tasted fishy, as it should do, not this black/red tastless mixture. On top of all these failings, there was zero attempt of an apology, or a reduction of the bill, nothing. A lesson learned. Do your homework, read reviews, and if in doubt, go elsewhere. These guys are prying on...

Bad experience overall, starting from the call I made to book the place where I had to repeat three times the details of my reservation. The waiters are overly friendly with their clients (us included): the owner came and hugged me from behind. When we got to ordering food, we had to ask three time if we could order, resulting in a 30-min wait just to order. The speed of preparation is not too bad, we got our food in 10-15 minutes, but they kept forgetting stuff, like a beer we ordered or the water to accompany the meal. The food itself was not the worst (spaghetti alla siracusana and spaghetti all vongole) although the pasta was almost raw.. we didn’t dare order any deserts as we didn’t want to spend another hour waiting, so we asked for the bill which came after 30 minutes. Bill and total were made by hand. When we got to paying we asked several times (again) if they could bring the card machine for us to pay and they didn’t do it, so we had to stand up and...

We placed our order and we had to wait forever. They brought the food before the beverages, even when we reminded them 2 times about it. I orderd a stake with fries and salad, and my husband had the pasta. My stake was cold, and also i had to wait another 10 minutes for the french fries. Also the french fries tasted bad, like they haven’t changed the oil in like 10 years. About 10 minutes after they brought the food, the beverages came. Also we lost about 2 hours for a normal meal. We had to wait for the check another 25-30 minutes after we asked for it. Also some of the waiters seemed to be rude and some of them overwhelmed. Overall, I just have to say that this was my worst experinence in an italian restaurant. Would not recomand! PS: We went on the 4th of June 2023, when the season is just starting so I could not imagine how things must be during...