Underwhelming experience that is not worth its price. The food is amazing, but the service was so bad it made everyone at our table uncomfortable. At least, the experience was worth a few laughs:
We were sat down 30min after our reservation (they were clearly understaffed and the restaurant was packed); and we ordered drinks, starters and main dishes. The waiter quite literally threw grissini sticks on our table. After 30 min of waiting, we called the waiter and asked about the drinks. We saw him go in the bar and prepare them himself. Our cocktails were served, but no water (as ordered). After a while, one of the three starters arrived. 50 minutes after the original request, two out of the seven main dishes arrived (before the remaining starters!). Two of us finished those dishes before any other food or water arrived. After a while, the waiter asked if all the food had arrived, we replied it didn’t and he just took off. Eventually we called him and told him we’d been waiting for a long time (over an hour and a half since we first arrived). He argued back (rudely) that “the wait wasn’t that long, because we were only sat down about 30min after we arrived, their only mistake was having the two main dishes arriving too soon, so the order was messed up”. A reminder that at this point we had people at the table who hadn’t eaten at all (because neither their starters or main dishes had arrived) over 1h30min after our reservation time. Instead of apologising and trying to address what was missing, the waiter was arguing. At this time, we said there was no need to serve the starters anymore and asked for the water once again - it finally arrived. Never saw a restaurant taking over an hour to serve a bottle of water.
When the food finally arrived it was very, very good. Some of the best Italian food we’ve ever had. Maybe except for the carbonara.
The worst part of the evening was right at the end. Before the bill arrived, we decided to have a word with the waiter on his manners. Over the evening, we quite literally had to remind him of everything we were waiting for, and instead of ever showing interest, he just argued back. We felt neglected the whole evening. That in itself is enough to apologise and try to understand why your clients were not satisfied. Whether he thinks he’s right or not.
To our surprise, once the bill came, we noticed an overcharge on the grissini sticks. So, first off, we asked for the price of those sticks to be rebated. The waiter seemed surprised that we were so greedy enough to rebate 2.4€ out of a 200€ bill. He had the same condescending attitude which he’d been showing all night. At that point, we told him that that attitude was another issue we wanted to address. The waiter kept arguing that we’d been served properly and that we “weren’t doing him any favours” [by attending the restaurant]. We said that all we were looking for was some acknowledgment or apology. He finally apologised, although clearly displeased. It felt like arguing with a child. Once we mentioned that we were trying to avoid asking for the complaints books, he promptly talked back “Do you want me to get the book for you? No problem”. He promptly left and didn’t return even while being called. Two of us had to follow him inside.
The service for the complaints book was better than for the rest of the meal.
Go for the take-away or don’t go. Unless you’re famous or look rich. Probably then they think you’re able to “do them...
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