Osteria da Rita (dal 1991) — Restaurant in Taormina

Came in with high expectations for this restaurant given the good reviews, unfortunately this was THE WORST dining experience I had out of the 20+ meals I had in Italy.

SERVICE: We came for lunch right when the restaurant just opened and were quickly seated, the restaurant did fill up completely in the next 15-20 min. After a significant wait just to get water, we kept trying to flag down the waiters to take our orders and were told to "wait" and that they had to take orders by following the order in which the guests were seated, which is fine IF they actually followed that order! We were seated well before 80% of the people in the restaurant, and they took orders from pretty much everyone else before getting to our table, despite my attempts to flag down the waiters multiple times to tell them they are not following their supposed order, only to be repeatedly told to wait without even waiting to listen to what I had to say. When they finally came to take our orders, 1 hour 6 minutes have passed, I kid you not, because I counted. (It took another 40 minutes for the food to come.) Also, based on the comments/questions from the waiter, I am pretty certain that they have lumped my table of 2 with another large group who arrived later but they had assumed we were part of that party because we presumably looked like we are from the same ethnic background even though we literally sat like 20 feet from those people; and thus the significant delay in taking our orders because they were waiting to take the "whole party's order together", funny enough, they still forgot to take our orders even after taking that party's orders. In the end, after realizing we are not part of that group that arrived late, the waiter merely said "sorry, too many people."

FOOD: I can forgive a lot, even all of the aforementioned nonsense if the food was good, unfortunately, the food was just adding salt to injury. We ordered the pasta with the garlic and chili which tasted of neither but was basically just spaghetti swimming in a pool of oil and topped with a heap of what I assume to be bread crumbs on top. We also ordered the eggplant pasta dish which again was underwhelming, it was so boring that I am not sure what else I can say about it. This food is not worth waiting in line for and certainly not worth suffering the disorganized service. I feel bad for the people who were still waiting in line to be seated as we left.

PRICE: The price of the dishes we ordered were very reasonable, but I would not eat the food again even if...

If I were to think of the first word that comes to mind after eating at this restaurant I would say “over hyped”.

My girlfriend and I waited over an hour to eat here, as does everyone. We started off by watching the last 2 couples behind us get greeted and had there orders taken before ours while we had already been sitting for quite some time. The same server who knew we had been sat before the other 2 finally had come over and rudely took our order. The other servers were friendly and we thankfully didn’t have to deal with him again.

The salad my girlfriend had ordered with the Red onions and Orange slices really didn’t have much flavor at all. The complimentary bruschetta were decent. The mussel soup had an over salted flavor in the soup itself at the bottom leaving it to be quite undesirable. The mussels were cooked decently though.

My entree was extremely disappointed ($17 euro Ravioli) (quite under cooked). Also very oily as others mentioned, quite strange considering the dish had no meat and was undercooked.

The servers never checked in to ask how we were doing until they came to clear plates. Not sure if it’s because we were seated the farthest away from the kitchen (which we didn’t have a problem with), but had we known it would affect the service we would have asked to have been closer.

It seems as if they try and give huge portions sizes to make all the dishes look appealing to people walking by and pictures online. It’s a shame the quality doesn’t match the dishes.

My girlfriend had ordered the pasta Al Rita (maybe called something different , it was the 2nd pasta choice going down). Was also over salted.

One thing we did enjoy to a degree was the tuna dish with caramalized onions.

Overall I would not recommend to dine here. There are a plethora of other options in the city. The prices weren’t terrible considering the portions sizes but when the food isn’t cooked correctly , over salted , and under flavorful, it truly doesn’t justify it being worth.

The bill came out to 90 euro with

Bottle of water ($4) Glass of local white wine The salad dish (can’t remember) Mussel soup ($15) Ravioli ($17) Pasta Al Rita ($15 I think) Bluefin tuna entree ($20)

Pictured was the...

When we were in Taormina on vacation recently, we had Osteria da Rita dal 1991 on our list of places we absolutely had to dine at for dinner. One thing to note is that Osteria da Rita dal 1991 does NOT take reservations under any circumstance and is walk in only. I tried to go through the local 5 star hotel concierge at our resort and they didn't have access, and I also tried to secure reservations myself (I work for a high end travel/concierge company) and also was unsuccessful myself. But now, I understand why after going there.

When you walk up, try to go towards the start of their dinner hours to get in line for a standby table. As tables "turn" the next table in the line is seated, that way everyone at the restaurant is treated fairly and is seated as tables are available. There were people in line with us that had dined there 2 or 3 times for dinner during their vacation, so we knew we were in for a treat because dining in Taormina is absolutely outstanding! Right across from the line queue, there in a gelato shop with a takeaway bar that sells wine, beer, and alcoholic drinks that you can take into the line while you wait for your table. At the time of our visit in June 2025, we were able to get a bottle of wine for 15 Euros that we drank while waiting on our table for about an hour to an hour and a half.

When we were seated, we were greeted warmly by restaurant staff and they brought over the menus and complimentary bread and bruschetta. We also ordered the bottle of house wine to start as well and it was really good!

For starters, we ordered the Spaghetti da Za Rita (15 Euros) and the Lasagna al Ragu (15 Euros). Both had homemade pasta and the quality was out of this world, everything was super fresh. For the entree we ordered the Lemon Flavored Meatballs (16 Euros) and these were out of this world, also very fresh and an amazing main course to share!

We were full by the time we got through with dinner, so we didn't order any dessert but all of the desserts looked amazing! They did bring over a complimentary shot of limoncello to close the meal which was also greatly appreciated as well!

It's truly an amazing restaurant and a must try spot if you're...