La Fratta — Restaurant in City of San Marino

I was a little disappointed when I first arrived here, since as a single diner I didn’t get the most welcoming experience and felt like I was causing them more trouble than I was worth. Despite being empty it wasn’t possible to get a table on the balcony so instead I was shown to a large table in the centre of the restaurant. The decor was great and it was really cosy throughout. The menu was very large for both food and drinks and the prices superb, for what ended up being good portion sizes.

The waiting staff were very friendly, perhaps a little too keen at times though to get orders taken which could be mistaken as a desire to turn my meal round as quickly as possible, but were professional at least. Actual service of each of the dishes was incredibly fast and unfortunately made the whole experience feel a little rushed. However everything was redeemed by the quality of the food.

Prior to the starter being served a basket of bread was brought, which was nice enough but unfortunately no butter to accompany. I opted for the “tasting of local cheeses” to start which was really enjoyable - a large amount of cheese with compote, although no crackers so the bread came in handy! Presentation was great on the slate plate however. The main dish of lamb cutlets was superb, served with potatoes which were so delicious, and the side of roasted vegetables I added was a welcome additional, although they were a little oily.

There’s a good range of drinks on the menu too, and it was a delight to see the house wine served as a carafe, which was provided in a chilled bag. There was no topping up from the waiting staff but that helped to make it a more relaxing affair, and even the house wine was very enjoyable.

I perhaps would have selected a desert to round off the meal, but getting the attention of any of the staff to order it was near impossible, so eventually I gave up. Payment was requested from the reception desk rather than at the table and although the quality of food was nice enough I felt the whole experience was both too rushed and more concentrated on the groups than those they deemed...

Made a reservation in person with the manager earlier in the day. Provided my name and number. Showed up for dinner, and ordered some overpriced bottled water (because apparently they don't have tap water - I wonder how they wash their dishes??) and a Caesar salad. The salad was the absolute WORST salad I have ever had - they used curly leaf lettuce that was drenched in a flavourless cream sauce with chunks of cold chicken. No salt, no romaine lettuce, no anchovy, garlic or lemon. Only the parmesan and the croutons were proper. Not worth the €16 we were charged. While the salad was on its way we saw TWO pages of their menu dedicated to pizza. Went to order pizza and we were told that they don't make pizza. Italians like to take random days in the middle of the week off, so we assumed that the pizza guy was just off for the night, but NO - they don't have a person to make pizza AT ALL. So I told them that they should remove the pages from their menu so as to not confuse other customers, but apparently the manager thought that was a bad idea. We specifically went there for pizza, so we proceeded to ask for the bill so we could get pizza elsewhere. We saw the manager giving a lecture to our lovely waitress who we asked for the bill. The manager then stormed over to our table to inform me (i.e. the person who made the reservation IN PERSON WITH HIM) that he did tell me that the restaurant does not offer pizza when I made the reservation, which he did not. So he called me a liar to my face and expected me to not only take it on the chin, but continue to order food from their restaurant. Unreal audacity! Manager needs an attitude check big time, and the chef needs to go back to cooking school. We figured if the salad was any indication of their culinary ability, our money was better spent elsewhere. We went down the street, got 2 pizzas and a bottle of wine and had a candlelight dinner in the comfort of our hotel balcony overlooking the beautiful town...

I never do these reviews but wanted others to beware of the service at this restaurant. We had earlier in the day asked to reserve a table her out of their terrace. They seemed fine with that, but when we got there and got seated, our waiter was the most rude person I've ever dealt in any country in Europe. The guy acted completely inconvenienced that we asked for a small table for 2 out on the terrace, and was completely rude for the duration of the meal. I ordered a filet mignon medium at the outset of the order. However, when he brought my husband's meal, he also had a meal for me, which he said was pork. I told him I ordered a beef filet mignon and did not want pork. He came back about 10 minutes later with a beef filet. However, it was so bloody I could only eat the outside of it. I took a picture to show staff at our hotel, who had recommended the restaurant along g with a number of others. We were going to ask for the check but our waiter would not even make eye contact with us, so we left our table and paid the bill as soon as we could at the front of the restaurant. After a week traveling in Italy and our second night in San Marino, this was the worst service a d meal we have had on this trip. My husband, who normally eats his steak medium, would not even touch this steak.

Just want to alert other potential customers of how horrible our experience was. Hopefully it was a grumpy waiter having a bad night, but there were no other customers there on the terrace when we arrived, so we were his first customers. We alerted our hotel, the excellent Hotel Rosa, to hold off on recommending this place to...