Ai Mascheroni Ristorante Osteria — Restaurant in Verona

Well, it seems that lightning do strike twice at the same place! After our 1st visit few days ago, we altered our return to Milano to have another visit at this fabulous place. Wow! So happy we did. I will go as far as to say that every one traveling the Milano Venezia highway MUST make a detour and embrace in a short and flavor full experience at Marius's heaven on earth. By far, the best aged T-bone and ribeye stakes we've ever had. Better than Peter luger. The 30 years experienced grill cook, beside being friendly and welcoming, knows his job to the letter. And the outcome...wow. For primi , We had Chefs pasta and the scallops. Both served beautifully and we're tasteful to the max. Small fresh and crispy mista salad closed the first part of the meal and gave us time to indulge on the amazing Amarone suggested by the chef. Then, the iron hot plates with the stakes arrived. Starting with 1 kg for the T-bone , we ordered 1 kg T and 1.2 kg of ribeye. Florentine styled, perfectly seasoned and cooked. Words can't describe. Really. After chewing off every fiber off the bone, came the refreshing part of a wonderful sorbet, lime and glazed orange pill. Better than any Italian competitors out there. And the tiramisu... Shy in appearance but carrying a big big big punch. The place itself is cosy and inviting, the crew, as the chef, are friendly and welcoming, completing the experience to its fullest. Thank you Marius for finding the time during service to explain and chat with us, and giving us such a good time and...

Fellow travellers, avoid this tourist trap! I take pride in selecting stellar places when travelling abroad. This was my statistical failure. I fell into a tourist trap and, honestly, this is a super deep and well-concealed tourist trap. Initially, I thought that the reviews were good and decided to give it a try, thus disregarding other reviews noting that it was a trap. Besides, almost 1,000 reviews and 4.6, could it be a trap?! Yes, it is!!! As soon as I walked in, there were max two tables with tourists only. That was the first red flag - no locals. Then, the waiting staff looked and acted sloppy; second red flag. But the food was unlike anything I have experienced over the past 7 years that I have been travelling and living in Italy. Super bad pasta, terrible taste, very salty, and re-heated Ratatouille (which was not truly a ratatouille). Two bites in and I politely asked for the bill to leave. I just wanted to pay and leave the place to go find food elsewhere. I was asked by three waiters whether I enjoyed the food and when I replied that it was bad, I was confronted by the owner, who was extremely rude and aggressive, telling me that this is traditional Italian food and asking me where I am from. I have lived and worked in the country for years!!! This was a terrible experienced and certainly not worth a...

We felt abused by this experience. There are few things worse than going out for a relaxing meal but instead feeling like people wanted to scam you.

As we sat down, the waiter heard us discussing Amarone wine. He passed us and pointed to the bottle of Amarone in his hands. He then brought a 1997 bottle to our table (€420) and “recommended” it to us 3 times without telling us the cost of the wine. They obviously thought we were tourists who they could scam! When we said no thank you he asked if we didn’t trust his recommendation. We explained that we wanted a more modest Valpolicella. He continued to press us. When we didn't agree, he left and basically we never saw him again (he was supposed to be the one looking after us!).

We then waited 45 minutes between our first course (cold cuts which were good) and the second course, and finally my husband had to go to the owner to follow up on it.

The risotto all'Amarone was very good. However, it did little to change the way we felt about the restaurant at that point.

The owner did nothing to make amends and when we told the chef about our experience with the waiter, he said 'I will think about it' and then did absolutely nothing.

Never again! There are plenty of excellent restaurants in Verona. Don't waste...