Ristorante Levante — Restaurant in Venice

We visited Levante on April 27th, 2024 and had an incredibly aggravating experience. The food was decent but the experience and the way we were treated was inexcusable and there was absolutely no effort made to apologize for our constant waiting. We are clearly not the only guests who had a similar experience at this restaurant. After leaving, we read many reviews which lined up exactly with our very unfortunate evening.

We booked the reservation earlier that evening on the website The Fork (all time slots were listed as available, even for a party of 5). When we arrived at the time of the reservation (7:30 pm) the entire restaurant was completely full. The hostess told us it would be about 15-20 minutes until a table would be free (it was not clear if she knew about our reservation before our arrival). We were 3 adults and 2 children. We decided to wait, as we knew it would be almost impossible to find another good restaurant nearby at this time on a Saturday evening. After 25 minutes (and a number of other guests had been seated) we asked what was going on and were assured that it would just be a short wait more. We were not offered any drinks or any apologies. After 3 more times asking, and an entire hour, we were finally seated at 8:30. The waiting continued: the servers (only 2 for the entire restaurant) ignored our constant efforts to get their attention and it took more than 30 minutes to get drinks. While we waited, we watched all of the other tables being attended to and eating all of the food they were being brought. The children's pasta dishes (plain pasta with nothing on them) finally arrived 2 hours after the original reservation time. We asked for parmigiano and the children were finished with their plates before the cheese was brought to the table. Other tables had ice buckets for their white wine and our bottle was just placed on the side with no ice and no explanation. We felt constantly like the restaurant was simply annoyed by our presence, while at the same time, they were very friendly and attentive to all of the other guests. The adults' pasta dishes arrived at 10:30 pm – 3!!! hours after the original reservation. When these dishes finally arrived, I told the waitress how shocked and upset we were and she didn't apologize or offer us a single drink or dessert or any compensation whatsoever. She simply said "the kitchen is busy tonight." (Which was ridiculous, because we watched tons of dishes being served throughout the evening – simply not the things WE had ordered.)

I will never know if we were treated this way because 1. We reserved on The Fork and they didn't know that we had a reservation, 2. We were tourists and not Italian, 3. We were eating with two children, 4. It was a "busy" evening. No matter what their combination of reasons were: it was a terrible and exhausting experience. Though the food which was finally served was good quality (but not exceptional in any way), we would (not surprisingly) never go back or recommend this...

I have traveled through Italy and this is by far the worst experience I've ever had from any restaurant here. My family reserved a table and arrived on time. Two other couples were also waiting for tables. All tables were taken and a family of four had just sat at a table. We went to the door, to let them know about our reservation and both hosts/waiters ignored our presence and the two other couples. No greeting from either of the hosts or a kind, "One second please, we need to take care of a few tables first." None of any previous places had treated their customers this way. Finally a host decided to address a few of the several people, respectfully waiting for any kind of acknowledgment. The host asked if they had a reservation and they replied that they hadn't booked one. She stared at them, like, "So why are you bothering me?" They timidly asked if they could book a later reservation and she curtly responded, "Yeah, see you then" and abruptly walked away from them. The couple she had spoke to walked away from the restaurant. She and the other host continued to manage the still full tables, finally speaking to us. We told them about our reservation and she said, "but you have to wait" and she walked away. We waited, feeling discouraged and disrespected. The other couple who had been waiting and were never addressed decided to leave. A couple minutes later she told us that a table would be ready in 10 minutes. The tables in question, currently had still been working on eating or hadn't been served at all. We wouldn't of minded if they had given our table away to someone already there or if they needed to help the customers already at the tables, but they did not communicate or respect us, or the other people waiting. The other host/waiter didn't say anything to anyone who was waiting. We decided to leave and go to another restaurant that treated us with respect that the hosts at Levante did not care to give. They treated us (and others) like we shouldn't be respected because we weren't already sitting at their table. Sure, many people in Venice are tourists, but to not treat people humanely and to treat them like their only use is to give you money, is not respectful or anything that a good person would even do. To the workers at Levante, if you even care; your disrespect and lack of validation lost you people that would give you money, the only thing you seem to...

My partner and I dined here and received some of the rudest service by the waiters I've ever experienced. We asked to sit outside and were told we had to wait (which was 100% fine with us) but after 10mins my partner politely tried to catch their attention to get a drink and we were ignored so eventually he managed to get a waiter to come over but the waiter just said very abruptly 'you have to wait!!!' He didn't even take a second to listen to what was being asked for (a drink not a table outside). After 25mins we ordered a drink but the waiter literally turned his back and walked off when I was trying to ask him a question. We waited for our table and were taken over to a space which needed setting up. We politely waited slightly back, giving the staff space and not standing over customers and suddenly another couple walked over and sat down in the seats we'd waited 45mins for. Waiter said nothing to them or us. We sat down shortly after and proceeded to have our waiter forget what drinks we'd ordered, we had to ask for cutlery after our food was given and finally they gave us the wrong (more expensive) bill. We've been in busy restaurants before with slow service but staff have always been warm and apologetic. The food was delicious and the spot was very pretty by the water but I'd never go back because of...