Itália — Restaurant in Coimbra

Never in my life have I felt disgusted by what was served to me until my last visit here. For a litlle of context, for people who are not from Coimbra, in the 90's and early 00's there were not much international options to dine in in the city, Itália quickly became a meeting point due to the fact that it was an Italian restaurant in a city full of traditional food and mainly because it's location was unique. The city started to evolve and have more options to dine in, especially international food, and Itália could not keep up the pace. In the last 15 years the restaurant started to decrease on its service quality or maybe simply it was always like this, not sure anymore. Last month I made a visit with a group of friends and asked for a stringoli pasta not knowing what was arriving.. This was the 1st time in my life that I felt disgusted by what was served to me, truly! The looks of it, the taste, it seemed like someone was trying to learn how to cook and it didn't work out but still, they served it. To add to this the entire experience was lame, the employees were not coming to our table, we had at least three occasions in which we called them and they simple looked away and carried on with their lives, borderline mediocre service! This looks like a 90's restaurant in which you still place and order by the plate number (Please, a 78 pizza!) and they clearly do not have a chef and no knowledge on how cooking works. Please, if you're visiting Coimbra don't stop here, we have loads of restaurants that can offer you a great service and it is also not worth it just for the view. Mediocre food, borderline mediocre service. Only someone who never experienced true Italian cuisine...

We loved Italia. Why? Everything was perfect. We have lived in Portugal for 1 year and 3 months, and this has been the only restaurant that was perfect in every regard: Beautiful river views, atmosphere. The tables were tastefully covered, adorned. Comfortable seats, nice cutlery. The waiters were nicely uniformed. Our waiter waited on us quickly, and immediately gave us menus. He then checked on us within a reasonable time, took our orders, etc. Our food was presented to us in a very reasonable amount of time, and what was nice was that my meal and my wife's was presented to us at the same time with our drinks. The food was creative, beautifully presented, the portions were generous, the prices inexpensive, and the food was very tasty and every ingrediant tasted fresh. The waiter checked on us occasionally and was quick to bring us more drinks and other things we wanted. When we finished, he was there immediately. We didn't have to try waiving him down. He then gave us a desert menu, quickly took our order, and again our deserts came quickly, and were at a good price point. Finally, we didn't have to chase him for the "conta". When we were done, we just sat, and enjoyed the sunset, without being rushed to leave. This restaurant was a great experience. Good job waiters (ours appeared to not be Portuguese, but maybe Romanian, Russian, Ukrainian, East European maybe), management,...

I feel like this restaurant has lost all its class and respect for customers. I have been going to Itália for lots of years now, but since it opened the new restaurant I only had bad service experiences. The latest one, which prompted me writing this review was last Sunday (7th august 2022). Me and my boyfriend came to have lunch (and several times the restaurant had told me they did no reservations for the spots near the river), for which a young man told us upfront that there were no seats available (even though lots of tables were empty!). He right away told us that the empty tables were all booked and that he could not tell us how long we could wait (and wouldn’t). We were thinking what to do when we saw a group of 5 people entering the restaurant and overhearing their conversations - they had no reservation and another employee sat them down right away near the river. I spoke with the employee who spoke with us and he told me different things trying to apologize himself without ever really apologizing for whatever discrimination he felt like doing at the time. Will not recommend this restaurant as the employees are not at all respectful or...