La Patatina San Polo — Restaurant in Venice

Well - my wife and I had just finished a 2 week trip to Rome, Florence and Venice. We have yet to have a poor experience at any restaurants we went to, until last night. This was the very first time I ever felt like I was dismissed or treated differently for being a tourist.

My wife had a bolognese sauce paste which was good and I ordered spaghetti carbonara which I hadn't had since Rome. When it came out, the eggs had obviously broke and there was no sauce...just fried eggs with bacon and pasta. I mentioned it to the waiter who said 'that is how we make it here - with eggs, not cream'

I am mad at myself that I didn't outright refuse the dish and made more noise. It would have made my wife extremely uncomfortable and we hadn't eaten since the morning. So I stuffed it down, good flavours - but again, no real sauce. I picked out each piece of big egg there was and left it on the plate.

When a different server asked how things were I told him I was not thrilled with the carbonara and he just laughed and asked me where we were from. I am going to chalk that up to not understanding english as well as he seemed.

With so many locals there - it really made me frustrated I did not know the language to express how I felt about the meal and worse that they were dismissive of my feedback. It was a very rookie mistake and there one in the world that would accept that as an acceptable dish.

I would recommend if you go - to avoid the carbonara and order stuff that is dummy proof so they cannot purposely mess...

I came here with my wife in the evening as a stop off for a couple of drinks before heading to another bar. I ordered 2 drinks. I ordered myself a beer. The man behind the bar asked what size (small, medium or large). I asked for the large and when it arrived in was huge (about a pint and a half). When we came to pay I asked for the bill and even though it was very quiet it took a very long time to get the bill and I asked numerous times. When I received the bill they had charged me exactly €20 for the beer. When I asked about this the man shouted at me that I ordered a large beer. First of all the customer service was extremely poor. Good customer service would have shown the size of the glass before serving. But more importantly charging €20 for a large beer even in Venice is absurd. They obviously thought they could rip us off because we hadn't checked the drinks menu before we ordered. We visited so many restruants and bars over the 4 days visiting Venice and never had any experience like this. I would strongly avoid this resturant. Its places like this that give the bad reputation of Venice being over priced and of poor quality. Venice as a whole is so beautiful and a must visit but not this restaurant. I was upset that the waiter or owner shouted across the restaurant in such a foul manner. There are many fine bars and restaurants which are very fairly priced, so my advice would be to visit there instead and avoid here...

Been ill and it was difficult to find anything with soul, we happened upon here and thought I would be able to find something. Although I did, my partners meal was dismal in comparison. Order lobster off the daily menu, was delivered a pasta with smashed shells and “tools” to help. I tried to assist but the amount of meat to sheel was a bit underwhelming. Many small pieces of shell to spit out while trying to eat. There was a man here complaining quite a bit about the price of something he distributors for (from what I could gather). Thought he was out of line, but after our experience I completely understand. Not to mention the 12 euro “cover charge” hidden in the menu you didn’t know about until the bill came. No use trying to discuss this as all of a sudden the other waitress couldn’t understand us. Not worth the hassle endured and ruined our night. I’m sure others enjoyed their meal, but we would never come back or even recommend. Atleast we were able to help out table neighbors avoid our experience...