Vincent Bistrò — Restaurant in Verbania

Unfortunately, our visit to Vincent Bistro left much to be desired. While the location is undeniably beautiful — perched close to the bay with a lovely view — the food and atmosphere did not live up to the expectations set by its current 4-star rating.

We began with a Limoncello Spritz, which was disappointingly flat and rather bland. For the starter, we ordered Salumi e Formaggi, which was genuinely good — fresh and tasty — but oddly served on a mound of finely sliced salad leaves, which felt unnecessary and distracted from the simplicity of good cured meats and cheese.

For my main course, I had the vegetarian ravioli with tomato sauce. The dish was deeply underwhelming: the sauce was watery and lacked character, and there was far too much of it. Moreover, the ravioli themselves were slightly cold around the edges, which suggested they hadn’t been properly heated through. My father-in-law chose the same dish, but with meat instead of vegetables, and found it equally dull and uninspired.

My mother-in-law opted for the lasagna, which had been recommended in previous reviews — but this turned out to be misleading. The lasagna was squishy in texture, almost soggy, with very little flavour to redeem it.

The greatest disappointment, however, was my husband’s main course: chicken with potatoes. It looked and tasted like something an 18-year-old student might cook after moving out for the first time. The chicken was dry and unseasoned, sliced awkwardly and served with what appeared to be mayonnaise mixed with a bit of pepper — a truly uninspired choice — and accompanied by a few limp slices of potato. For the price of 24 euros, the portion was additionally so small it hardly would satisfy even a 10-year old.

Service was passable but far from warm; the staff seemed tired, bored, and not particularly keen to make guests feel welcome.

Overall, Vincent Bistro appears to rest heavily on its scenic location rather than the quality of its cuisine or hospitality. While I understand how the view alone might inflate the average rating, it does not justify its current 4 stars. At best, it deserves 3 — in my opinion, closer to a 2 or 2.5 if that were possible.

Regrettably, I would not recommend dining here unless one is only interested in the view — and prepared for a meal that does not match it and...

AVOID

Situated just by a lovely town square by the beautiful Lago Maggiore Vincent Bistro looks neat and presents itself as a nice mid-range wine bar and restaurant.

Despite the scenic view of the lake and the quaint town square, sadly, there is little to like and much to dislike.

For starters, my family, my wife and I ordered a deli platter to share. It was very small, and all of the cold cuts and cheeses lay on top of a very dry, shredded salad, seemingly put there to make the dish look like it had more meats and cheeses than it actually did.

For the main dish, I ordered the 24€ chicken with potatoes and black pepper sauce. As you can clearly see from the attached photo, I was served half a chicken breast, one or one and a half potatoes and a very small sauce dish. I love chicken. I have rarely found any chicken dish that I have not liked. This was very, very dry, and it seemed like it’d been cut before it was cooked rather than afterwards (which would explain why it was so dry). The potatoes were mushy and bland, and the sauce was not much to write home about.

On top of all of this, the waitress was cold in her demeanor and didn’t seem like she cared either about us or her job. Frankly I’ve had better service buying post stamps in the nearby shops in Verbania than here.

Lastly, even though we told the waitress several times that we wanted to keep the salad from the cold cuts to have it with our main dishes later on she repeatedly tried to take it from our table without asking.

I get that it looks nice. But. Do not eat here. There’s plenty of very nice restaurants nearby where you can get the same view, better service, and much better food for a more...

Can’t recommend this place. We came 20 min before kitchen reopening and ordered 2 dishes. We received them after 1 hour of waiting and my pasta was so salty I couldn’t eat that. After 10min of trying we finally caught our waiter who apologized and took my pasta away. I wasn’t sure if I want to wait for another pasta but he simply walked away without asking me. After another 25 minutes we asked the bill and said that we don’t want to wait any longer. Instead of apologize the woman (who seems to be chef) yelled at my husband in Italian. We agreed to pay full price and wait a bit more. But after another 10 minutes we came back and the woman yelled on us again. Besides that the food is average and overpriced. And yelling on clients doesn’t...