Ristorante VarennaMonamour — Restaurant in Varenna

Don't go there.

This place was, by all means, my worst restaurant experience in my life. I have never experienced such rude, arrogant and selective behaviour in any restaurant. We were basicly treated like vagabonds and I have no clue why. We are normal europeans, I had dress, I greeted when I entered the place, I was nice, smily and I thanked. When we came, the waitress first told us that the restaurant is full, than that it is closed. There were people eating both inside and ouside, so it was an obvious lie. We thought we misunderstood, so we waited for one of the outside tables to sit. When the table was free, we showed to the lady that we'd sit there. And she ignored us. After 15 minutes of looking just through us she came and said that there was a reservation on this table and made a face. A face. It was a lie as well. To cut the long story short, we refused to leave and we were served after more than an hour. It took us more than two hours to deal with bare lunch there. The meal didn't really improve the impression. It was almost cold, my portion was quite small and the taste was bland. The waitress smiled only at some people, as we observed. And she rejected some people who came to look for place, still telling the same "closed/full restaurant" story, even though some tables were free. They SELECT PEOPLE. This is unacceptable and I wish this restaurant didn't have this much stars, it doesn't reflect the reality. It was awkward, it was embarrassing, it was horrible. To sum up: staff...

Varenna is such a beautiful place. My friends and I went for a day trip and took us some time to find the right restaurant to eat as everything was just so busy. We looked at VarennaMonamour online and decided to call to book. No one picked up the phone (I guess the team was extremely busy) so we decided to head to the restaurant and try our luck: There was a lot of confusion at the door, as the waiter was deciding if she would take our booking or not, but in the end they did and we were so happy. The food is overpriced (slightly over the price practiced by some nice restaurants by the lake) and the atmosphere was very disappointing - the waitress had no experience so I could feel her struggle in dealing with several tables at the same time, the restaurant is super quiet and does not help in creating a warm feeling. The food was ok - nothing to get too crazy about (the best dish was the codfish with pasta). It I would go back? No. I think you can eat better for less and with a better...

We had a very disappointing experience at this restaurant. To begin with, we were served bread with visible mould. When I pointed this out, the waiter simply walked off with the bread basket, tore off the mouldy section, and returned the rest to our table with the comment, “It’s okay.” There was no replacement or apology, which was especially jarring given the €3 per person cover charge.

The food itself was below average, and the pasta did not taste homemade. The Aperol Spritz we ordered before the meal was essentially a splash of Aperol topped with flat water - certainly not a proper spritz.

Finally, beware of hidden charges if you request gluten-free pasta. We were charged €2 for the gluten-free option (understandable), but then an additional €2 for a “celiac” fee—even though we never said we were celiac. This felt dishonest and like a complete scam.

If you want authentic italian food and good service then save your money and...