Antica Mola dai Costa — Restaurant in Venice

AVOID THIS PLACE

The waiters were incredibly rude and aggressive to my 77 year old mother, who we had taken there for her birthday meal, after we complained about substandard food.

I couldn’t believe what I saw so started to film it, then another waiter snatched my phone and refused to give it back for several minutes. .

For context, first off, the starter, a mixed fish platter was quite nice. But the main course was disgusting. My cuts of meat was completely over cooked, really dry potato’s and my mums lamb was baked in a thick crust of burnt pistachios. My sisters lasagne tasted like school dinners. We complained, and at first, the waiter tried to defend the food, saying they were particularly expensive potatoes, not hearing our complaints, until we requested he try them. He had no choice but to agree. In fairness they took the plates away and then gave us fried potatoes (which we hadn’t asked for) equally dry, and the new steak came back completely cold.

We compared notes and found that not one of us had enjoyed out main. We tried to voice our dissatisfaction, and the waiter began shouting aggressively at my mother. My mother who understands Italian understood various insults and his statement "you English never eat food as good as this in your country"

At this point, alarmed, I began filming and another member of staff suddenly rushed towards me and grabbed my phone and ran off with it. (Clearly not wishing their awful behaviour to be publicised).

Our bill was pretty expensive. None of us finished our (quite small) plates. At the end, my Monzo card initially did not have sufficient funds and immediately he accused us of trying to avoid paying which shocked us. We of course paid in full and the whole staff continued to started to insult us. Here’s a screen grab from the footage. It’s extraordinary.

DON'T...

I’ve never been treated with such disrespect in a restaurant than I have here. This isn’t a reflection of the entire staff but one in particular, an older man working the dinner shift on Friday evening.

My bf and I sat down and decided to order a main course, a side dish, and a bottle of wine to share. The gentleman taking our order screamed nodding his head, “No this is not ok you came here to a restaurant” and literally just left our table without any explanation or reasoning as to why he got so angry and just walked away. We were both baffled as shocked, as he didn’t even bother to let us speak and waved us to leave. Just left!

Now if there is some unspoken rule about each person requiring a main dish, I think a gentleman can express that in a normal way rather than storming off like an immature child. How would we know? Or Perhaps we’re just curious customers just wanting to try some dishes and if we liked more, we’d order as we go.

Regardless, Ive never heard of such a rule , and I don’t care who you are or where you’re from you can have some decency to treat people with respect. If you’re a restaurant that wants to charge a minimum amount, then at least train your employees to act accordingly because this behavior is...

Amazing: I come here for 17 years now. This Iwrote 10 years ago: "Authentic Venetian restaurant, friendly service, good food @ reasonable prices. Some tourists always find their way to this place, but locals frequently drop in, so it mixes well. The crew is mainly Bangladeshi in the kitchen, but they seemed to have learned their Venetian cooking quite well. Real good down-to-earth seafood and fish dishes, nothing posh though. Try SARDE IN SAOR or the typical fried seafood or the mussel soup... We've eaten here 3 times in the last 7 years, it has not changed over the years, the former owner seems to have retired, but it still looks like a family place." And today? Things have changed of course, but for even better. Antica Mola is still a neighbourhood place where the locals drop in for their Ombra and a quick bite or hold family celebrations. Many tourists find their way to this place, but it is still worth the long way to get here: fine Seafood, traditional Venetian dishes, good local and regional wines. I guess w3'll continue to come here for another couple of years! Thank you...