Trattoria da Marco — Restaurant in Lisse

Appetizers and deserts very good though overpriced for the quality. Entrees pretty bad; the ravioli drowning in some generic cream sauce, fruits di mare terrible! The mussels and clams so small and dried out they were hard to find, the spaghetti thick and over cooked. Worst of all the young and obviously poorly trained waiter who had an opinion about everything and could not answer any questions. E.g when salt was requested for the bread and olive oil, he stated there was enough salt in it already, when salt was requested nonetheless, he came with a shaker to add a teensie bit, then walked off with it. When we requested he leave it on the table, he stated we were not the only table that may want salt although there was plenty in the food (!!!!) tip not wanted apparently. And that is just one of many eyebrow raising incidents in one sitting. Ever heard about the...

Médiocre food, not terrible but you would expect much better, especially given the steep prices. Service is dreadful - we asked if they had Martini for apéritif, waittons had never heard of it. When asked what other Italian drinks they had, they had no idea. We settled for G&T. Service took forever, only to be told that our choices were not available (no problem), but no menu was offered to choose a replacement. Food took well over an hour to arrive. This place is not shy to charge, the bill came to €120 for two - given the service and sad food, I would recommend choosing somewhere else to have...

We had an excellent lunch at Da Marco. From the moment we entered and a frowning Marco checked his well-worn reservation book (and, not finding our name, resorted to his smartphone while pontificating on the perils of online booking), we knew that we had chosen a proper Italian trattoria. And everything was excellent, from the insalata caprese to the ravioli to the branzino, with simple flavors bursting forth from the fresh ingredients. Marco ran the show in the kitchen, and we eagerly observed the action from our table. The waitstaff were pleasant and helpful. A great place for...