La Vita è Bella — Restaurant in Lisbon

I have been going to this restaurant for about 4/5 years, alone, with family or friends and I have NEVER experienced something like today. I have always noticed that the personal changes a lot and most of them don’t speak Portuguese but that was never a problem and the food and staff always made up for it. This time everything was different, they got our orders wrong, forgot ingredients on dishes, brought cheese for a person who specifically asked not to put the Parmesan cheese on the plate and still no use. Unfortunately this was not the end of it.. the food tasted different and the staff was very disorganised and we were hearing several complaints so I decided to ask if they were changing management or something happened to one of the waiters, after 5 minutes the so called “manager” came to our table with no manners and very aggressive asking me how long I have been going there for me to complain like that (I didn’t even complain… just asked a question) she proceeded to speak like she was insulted and I tried to move the conversation away from them table (we were celebrating a birthday) but she continued to talk about some changes they were making and about the group that owns the restaurant. I said thank you for the information several times for her to get the hint that she was bothering us and making us very uncomfortable but she continued to do so. This was a terrible experience, she should not be working in the hospitality business with this attitude, every kind of feedback given politely and calmly is worth listening to, instead we just had to hear a very rude and unbearable lecture because she felt insulted by a question (no complaint at all). Other than that the rest of the staff was great and made a great effort and I’m very sorry for the restaurant and for what it was. Just for information, this restaurant has/had a ver special meaning for me and I will never...

Waiters behaving in a very unprofessional way. Pretended Italian mannerism - Italian people (luckily) is cool, not like these guys who have no idea about how to have a natural, kind behavior instead of false manners, humiliating guests (!) and telling the name of the foods in a way like Lord Varys speaks in Game of Thrones (plus, with a false accent and a wrong pronunciation). I really felt ashamed, even though I'm not Italian, but I speak the language and worked with Italians for years. This place seems to be some kind of parody of Italian restaurants - but no sense of humour, just really bad taste. We went there in a group of several nationalities - all of us speaking Portuguese fluently, including a Korean person. The staff of the restaurant kept to speak to this person in a way like he had special needs - even though he was talking to them in a clear, fluent Portuguese all along. When we entered, seeing that we are with an Asian person, the staff said they could get a place to us to sit on the floor! Meanwhile we were there, an elderly couple entered and sat on a reserved place by mistake. They were treated by one of the waiters in a quite humiliating way - he called the gentleman "senhora" ("lady") and made them sit elsewhere without any elegance. Lost in the fake mannerisms, the staff forgot about our orders and get back several times to ask about them, then brought a pizza we didn't ask for. Plates were taken away before we finished the dinner(!). Carbonara and bolognese had no taste as per our friends said. Two stars only because my food (cannelloni with ricotta and spinach) was good and fresh. The guy in the checkout was just simply rude. Not because of the food or the prices, but due to the behavior of the staff, this is a place I never wanna go back to. Ignorance and lack of respect towards different cultures and human...

I ate here last Sunday and would not recommend it. Had it not been so late and my friend and I were not so tired we would have gone elsewhere. I would prefer to go hungry than eat there again. The service was dire and the food was mediocre. It was very disappointing given how wonderful all our other dining experiences had been in Lisboa.

The first issue was we were told to sit outside because they were fully booked inside. However, no one arrived after us and there were empty tables. The young waiter outside appeared to be very inexperienced and lacking in social graces. His manner was rude, abnoxious and abit odd. There were a few things that he did which were rude but we were midly amused by him initially. However, when he criticised my friend over how she ate, he went too far. My friend was not using a knife to eat her pasta and he criticised her in such an inappropriate way. She was made feel very uncomfirtable. The food itself was not very good and the napkin I was given had footprints on it.

The best part was when we asked for the bill. The waiter brought a card and ordered us to leave 'a good review' on tripadvisor. The bill was taken and because we were not leaving a tip he shouted something in our direction and two other waiters stopped and looked over at us. We had money remaining on the table and another waiter came over, bent down to be eye level with the table and asked what wine we drank. He said he wanted to look at the bottle but seemed more interested in the money we had on the table. He tried to be friendly but really... too little too late. I always leave a tip but in this occasion the only tip I left was to clean their linen.

There are plenty of other places to eat in Lisbon. Don't let the appearance of this places nice...