Antico Martini — Restaurant in Venice

I am here to share the terrible experience I had at your restaurant. I visited Venice in 2023 and had a great experience twice at your restaurant. However, in 2024, it was a disaster.When we arrived at the restaurant, the decline in quality was immediately apparent. The unfriendliness and coldness of an employee with short hair and blue eyes were palpable, as if he were doing us a favor. Because of this, we decided not to order any appetizers since the experience had already started off poorly. We ordered bread as a starter and the main courses. The bread never arrived. One of the dishes, specifically the chicken curry, had mold on the rice, which is absolutely deplorable for a restaurant that claims to have a good reputation. They replaced the dish, and we ate. Since they did not bring the bread and there was mold in the rice, we decided to ask for the bill. The bill included a charge for the couvert, but we did not have a couvert. I asked an employee about the couvert charge, and he said it was for the bread. I responded that we didn’t receive any bread, and the employee laughed mockingly. Then, the employee with blue eyes who had initially greeted us at the restaurant approached us again, and true to his rude behavior, he aggressively said that IN VENICE, IT IS CUSTOMARY TO CHARGE A FEE JUST FOR PEOPLE TO SIT DOWN. Conclusion: At Al Antico Martini, you have employees where one tells the customer one thing and then another tells them something different, showing that they don’t work well as a team.. They mistreat, deceive customers, and tarnish their reputation over the petty amount of the couvert. You may laugh, deceive, and mistreat customers. You’ve managed to fatten up the bill with the trophy of the couvert charge that you didn’t serve. But do you know what’s worse? It was lunchtime, and the restaurant was empty. We were the only ones on the terrace, along with one other table, witnessing your deplorable service. Congratulations. You’re on the right path. New tourists will arrive every day, but for every day that you mistreat customers, you are ruining the restaurant. Keep going. You are doing everything correctly to destroy the restaurant and tarnish the image of...

We had a very shocking experience at this restaurant. We reached our hotel in Venice around 5.00 p.m. after a tiring journey from Rome and decided to find a nice restaurant to have dinner. While strolling, we found this restaurant near our hotel and checked if they have a table for 3. It was around 6.00 p.m. with so many empty tables around and just two or so tables occupied. Yet , the staff member (a grey-haired gentleman) looked at us hesitantly and unwillingly gave us a table. Though we found his attitude weird , we took it in our stride. We ordered drinks and were going through the menu of snacks/starters section to go along with our drinks and were planning to move on to the mains later. When I asked for some clarification on one of the starters , the guy looked at us and says we are serving dinner. He then said “Are you going to have dinner , because I’m not sure you would “ (of course we intended to ). His sarcasm and attitude made us reply " yes we are not sure " and then he says ok so “Maybe some other time “ .That was the rudest thing I’ve ever faced as a customer . We were so appalled by his attitude and just got up and walked away. The whole episode seemed to be very racist as we were Indians and I have no idea what made him think we would not be good enough to be dining at this restaurant. We have dined at the best of fine dining restaurants in many parts of the world and have never faced such an attitude anywhere. I am not generalizing as we were there in Italy for a whole 9 days and thoroughly enjoyed the places, people, culture, and food barring this one episode. I’m just pointing out the poor mentality of that one guy. Fortunately we were guided by our hotel manager to another fantastic restaurant near by “ Da Cherubino”. The owner/manager and his team (all his staff) were so gracious, and the food was amazing. The restaurant was fully occupied and despite having no previous appointment , they arranged a table for us. We rarely repeat visiting the same restaurant more than once while travelling , however we spend both our nights dining at this...

Ok, so I have been to several "great" places to eat - and this is definitely NOT one of them. They started it off with a lost reservation that my hotel front desk had confirmed the morning of - not to mention the e-mail that I sent 2 weeks before my arrival in Venice stating that the reservation was accepted. It went downhill from there. The chairs are cheap outdoor patio furniture, and the atmosphere as a whole was lacking - if it was not for the location it was a total loss. The appetizer was horrible, the first course was poorly cooked and lacked reason, and the pork was cooked no better than if a 10 year old had overcooked it and slapped some poorly thought out seasoning on it in an attempt to cover the rubbery meat inside. When I asked for a recommendation on the wine to go with the pork (before it arrived) I was told a deep rich red - maybe burgundy - really? Pork and red wine? I tired it out of curiosity and it was a complete clash of flavors. The only saving grace was the 14 Euro Crème Brule that was extremely good, but was far too late in the meal to makeup for the failings throughout the evening.

After spending more than I care to post, I was then presented with the bill - that included a 6 Euro "cover charge". Add insult to injury - I deeply did not want to pay for the horrible dinner to begin with, yet they then charge a cover charge? No other restaurant I visited other than the small snack bars charged one the entire stay yet they had the gall to tell me this was standard for ALL Venetian restaurants?

I warn you - stay...