Stazione Pazzo — Restaurant in Soest

The food was fairly rustic, but pleasant. A bit like a good Dutch home-cook making Italian food with supermarket ingredients. In Italy, or with a more ambitious Dutch hobby cook, the quality of the ingredients would be better, which would elevate the fairly simple dishes. I love simple, rustic food, but at 75 euros a person this restaurant should be able to source better ingredients. An example is using supermarket quality San Daniele ham rather than a top grade version made by a small producer. The cooking was fine, but not refined. There were also a few small lapses like the boiled egg served too cold out of the fridge. A positive note is the bread, which was very good.

The service had a lot of room for improvement. The ribeye didn't come with a practical cutting knife, for example. The wine offering was problematic. The white was served too cold and wasn't fresh. The red was served too warm. The staff didn't seem to know anything about the wines apart from the main grape. From the young boy that served us initially that is excusable because he was clearly inexperienced and it wasn't his fault that nobody has told him that they don't make wine in Venice (where he said several of the wines were from, possibly mixing it up with the Veneto region). The owner (presumably?) didn't demonstrate much knowledge either. When asked where the wine described as Sangiovese was from he mentioned Chianti. I didn't get to study the bottle, so maybe I was wrong or I just misunderstood him, but this didn't seem to be the case. They don't have a wine list or menu and if the staff also doesn't present the wines clearly this makes things unnecessarily difficult.

As with the food, the wine didn't deliver on price/quality. The wines were sold at higher by the glass price than the value of the whole bottle. I'd happily pay upwards of 10-15 euros a glass for a good quality wine or more than a hundred euros for a good bottle in a restaurant, but 7.50 euros a glass for a wine in a category you can buy for 6 euros a bottle and is served at the wrong temperature is a pass for me. Italy has a lot of wines that offer great value for money in the lower and middle price brackets and that a restaurant can get very good margins on, so this isn't snobbery, but a missed opportunity.

In summary, they execute at the level of a fairly simple but decent neighborhood restaurant, but because they have priced themselves into the same category as Michelin bib gourmand restaurants it is difficult to be forgiving about the...

We have been quite a few times to Stazione Pazzo, but for the first time we were very disappointed. The food was just OK, not at all what we remembered from previous visits. The vegetarian menu was particularly disappointing. The starter for everyone was a simple salad of lettuce, ham and blue cheese. For the vegetarians the large pieces of ham were replaced with a tiny bit of parmesan - not very original. The vegetarian main course was pasta pesto. Nice enough but it was just a very, very small plate of spaghetti with pesto. nothing else. Not even parmesan cheese grated on top, or some veggies. Wasn't really a main course at all, and for the price actually not acceptable. Also the fish main course was ridiculously small, even for fine dining. The cheese course was also not very special. And then what we really missed was good personal service. Everything felt rushed and business-like. We had a very young waitress who poured the wine and ran off without even telling us anything about it. This has not been our experience before at this restaurant which is why it was so disappointing. For €70 per person it really missed the mark, which is such a shame (and I have mixed feelings about even writing this review), as we have had really wonderful evenings here...

UPDATE !!!

Als de eigenaar van de tent waar je een teleurstellende ervaring hebt gehad, je hoogstpersoonlijk belt om zijn excuses aan te bieden . . . dan heb je weer wat sterren teruggewonnen. En it's a deal; de volgende keer dat ik kom, maken ze me blij met dat extra kopje koffie of mooie glas wijn. Ciao ciao! A la prossima volta

OORSPRONKELIJK BERICHT Heerlijk gegeten maar de bediening (of was het de logistiek?) en de vriendelijkheid lieten te wensen over! Na de 3e misser (1. tafeltjes links en rechts van ons kregen direct het overheerlijke warme broodje - terwijl wij toch écht al 10 min eerder een tafeltje aangewezen kregen; 2. de wachttijd tussen de verschillende gerechtjes van ons 4 gangen menu - geen lullig bedrag zeg maar - was vele malen langer dan die van de andere gasten; 3. mijn 2e wijntje kwam maar niet door terwijl het gezelschap naast ons uitgebreid te woord werd gestaan over hun 2e drankje . . . ) hadden we op zijn minst een 'jeetje, sorry! wat vervelend, ik ga het direct rechtzetten' verwacht toen we na ons dessert 2 espresso's bestelden . . . 5 minuten aan het wachten waren . . . de buurtjes hun koffie bestelden en . . . 2 tellen later hun koffie geserveerd kregen!!! Op de vraag 'nog iets gewenst?' reageerden wij met 'wij zouden ook nog 2 koffie krijgen' kwam de volgende tekst "Geen enkel idee!". Met mijn hospitality achtergrond kan ik hier slecht bij . . . dus helaas - geen positieve review. Benieuwd of ik hier wel een correcte reactie op krijg! Groet, de 2 mountainbikers die voor €150 hebben gegeten...