Bar Gianni Franzi — Restaurant in Vernazza

Believe me: All the good reviews of this place must have been bought. You can do this these days. People all over the world sell the service "Buy a perfect review". There is absolutely nothing good about this place except the location that they sadly misuse. They should not be allowed to occupy such a nice spot in Vernazza. They bring shame on the town and the whole area. We booked a table. Ordered from the extremely high priced menu, expecting to get some value for that. It was our last day, so we wanted our family to have a nice end to a perfect stay. This place managed to drag Vernazza down from 100% and more to close to zero. I have a hard time believing my own memory of how bad this was. We ordered the fried or baked fish for 24 euros. We have done this in many places as the wife loves it. But not here. What she got was a rather small fish, a little bit fried, not crunchy, just limp. With some fries, and absolutely nothing more!! I ordered stuffed mussels, local speciality. The day before I saw other people get a large bowl in other restaurants, and was looking forward to that. Italy and France know how to serve mussels. But no. What I got was 8 cold mussels, with no mussel in it, I believe it was canned tuna they had stuffed in those poor mussels that probably someone else ate the day before. Only 8 small mussels stuffed with cold tuna, and nothing more. I ordered fries extra so that I at least could eat something. Oldest child ordered a kind of entrecote. What she got was a thin grey piece of meat. With nothing more! No salad, no nothing. We ordered fries to her too. I cannot remember what the youngest ordered, but she got her extra fries too!! And mind you: This is one of the best locations, one of the absolutely most expensive restaurants in town or any town. It is just a disaster. They should be put out of business so that some useful people could enjoy this location, and contribute to a positive experience for people travelling from all over the world to visit this part of Italy. When I got my 8 kind of cold mussels stuffed with canned tuna, I asked the waiter (a young man) if this really is a main course (thinking I may have made a mistake and ordered a starter) he said yes, but was clearly uncomfortable with the situation. He had obviously heard complaints before. Poor boy. We noticed a middle aged "boss" overlooking all the young waiters and straight out mishandle them. Poor boys. They are in the hot spot kind of. Not many jobs around, they have to do this, and know that what they are a part of is wrong. Please: Dont destroy your impression of Vernazza by visiting this joke of a resteurant. This is nothing but a tourist trap. Worse. It is a scam. I have a hard time believing that this place is run by local people. They have a heart. This restaurant does NOT have a heart. My guess is that someone with enough money had bought this place in Vernazza, made himself a money-mascine (because every day brings new people to rip off), and through location kind of overshadow the modest, goodhearted locals that run the restaurants their family has run for generations. Those locals know how to cook. How to handle people by just being who they are, not pretending. By pure luck we had dinner at Captains Cabin the day before. Run by locals for generations. Perfect. Warm welcome, friendly, real food. Go there. Go to the locals, not the scammers that I with this "review" hope to contribute to get out of their location so that someone worthy of it may take it over. Please, do not waste your time and destroy your impression of Vernazza and its people by eating at Bar Gisnny Franzi. They may operate under another name also, so to make it clear: It is the resteurant in the center of the bay. The best location, center to the small beach. Do NOT go there. Disregard the bought reviews. Dont shame the good people of Vernazza by contributing to this tourist-trap and scam to go on. Do NOT degrade you, your family, friends, Vernazza, by going to Bar Gianni Franzi. Do not rent a room there. Ps: Just disregard the bars...

TOURIST TRAP! UNSAFE, ESPECIALLY FOR FEMALE TOURISTS! Another female solo traveler and I came to this restaurant at the recommendation of her AirBNB host. Our waiter was odd from the beginning and went on a tangent about how his home country of Morocco was the best country in the world. We asked for a light, white Cinque Terre wine to start. He kept insisting on a certain wine on the menu (which was fully in Italian). So, we were happy to take his suggestion even though the bottle was 70 euro. When he brought the wine, he was talking rapidly. It was in a tall slender box, so we thought perhaps it was some fancy olive oil. We had never seen white wine in a box or in a slender bottle. He opened the bottle and immediately poured full glasses. It happened so quickly. The wine was not white, it was orange. We looked strangely at the waiter and each other. We took a quick sip and immediately said this is not at all what we ordered. Our waiter who had been overly friendly, talkative, and joyful turned quickly angry, defensive, and was yelling. He kept accusing us of picking the wine and that he brought what we asked for. We tried to talk and he would not even let us say two words. He ran off and said he was getting his boss. He and his boss started yelling at us from afar. We insisted we ask for a light, white wine. We asked if we could send it back and get what we asked for and they would not accommodate us. I eventually said we are leaving and we are not paying 70 euro for this wine (which was clearly a dessert wine). We got up and walked away and then the “boss” started running after us and screaming. He got in our faces and nearly touched me. He said he was calling the police and said we had to go sit inside the restaurant for an hour to wait for the police. I continued to try and explain our version because he never heard our side. He would not let us get two words out. It became a screaming match between me and the boss and waiter. Then, some locals jumped in and they were on the restaurant's side. There were two older ladies who I pleaded with to just let me explain what happened and they were mean and hateful too. We actually feared that we may be physically assaulted. I strongly believe in being a responsible tourist and I always do my best to respect and honor the local culture. I tip well to show my appreciation. I would never try to stiff someone. However, I knew we were being taken advantage of. I called the police myself (because I wasn’t sure if they actually had). That was a hard experience because they had to use a translator who spoke English, but had a very hard accent to hear through. I was trying to explain to the police the situation while the waiter and boss were still yelling at me. The police eventually said to pay for the wine, get a receipt, and come to the police station in the morning to file a report. The other lady who was with me went inside to pay and a woman working there charged her 50 instead of 70 euro just so we could get out of the situation because it felt very unsafe. It is unfortunate that this was the experience because the restaurant is in a prime location with beautifully colored umbrellas overlooking the ocean. My advice, believe the other low rated reviews. Their experiences are also what we...

Went here six years ago and was excited to come back this time when I came back to Vernazza with my family. Unfortunately, I had about as bad of an experience as you can have. My sister and I were refused service on multiple occasions, seemingly simply for being American. After saying hello and asking for a table, we were told just “no” without any explanation. While the waiter seemed a bit short with us, we just assumed they were busy and went somewhere else for lunch. Because we wanted to recreate a meal from our previous trip, we decided to go back after lunch to try to make a booking for dinner the next night. It was at this time that the waiter rudely walked up and firmly repeated his “NO” from before. We explained we had already eaten but just wanted to make a booking for later, and he looked at us, paused, and without saying anything asked the group behind us if they would like a table. We were a bit confused but just assumed they must have had a reservation (which we later learned from chatting with them that they didn’t), so we stayed in line assuming they just needed some time to get to us for a reservation. However, after fifteen minutes of patiently waiting and then serving multiple people behind us in line, it became clear that they were just ignoring us. It’s hard to say why for certain, but they seated a number of Italian and French speakers, and continued ignoring us and one Asian couple who came a couple minutes later. At this point I was pretty irritated, not having dealt with this kind of clear discrimination in this country before, but I assumed it was just a couple bad servers who were stressed from rush hour (although by 2pm after our actual lunch they weren’t really that busy). So I approached what appeared to be the manager, explained we had been waiting a bit and just wanted to make a booking for later because we really enjoyed their food. He also was very short, and just said “it’s impossible” without even asking when I wanted a booking. I would be lying if I said the food wasn’t great, but the whole staff was so incredibly rude and discriminatory that I feel obligated to document it. A couple clarifications for the skeptics - I had nothing to drink that day so alcohol had nothing to do with the treatment, despite being upset I never complained to them or yelled at them, I was well dressed at the time, and this is the first 1-star review I’ve left in all of my travels. From everything I could see, their refusal was based solely on who I was, not how I was. I understand other people have to deal with far worse all the time, but there is no place for service like this in the restaurant or tourist business. For what it’s worth, the place next door had lovely servers and amazing food. Anyone who cares about good service or taking a stand against discrimination is encouraged to enjoy...