Antica Toscana — Restaurant in Bratislava

I feel really sorry to give only 2 stars to this restaurant. I have been to Antica Toscana several times and the food is good, but this time there were so many bad aspects that the 'good food' is not enough. If you go there in 6+ people, the restaurant is asking you to order the food at the time of the booking and to take a limited number of different dishes. Both of those rules are really annoying and ridiculous for me. But ok, the restaurant explained they do this to better organize the service and the kitchen. Of course we respected the rules and we ordered the food 2 days in advance from the online menu, as requested. I and another person ordered a kind of pasta (saccottini) with mushrooms. Despite the pre-order, they gave to us the saccottini with another kind of sauce. I complained in a kind way with the owner, saying that I was eating the food, but I ordered and preferred another sauce. The reply has been not very polite "I don't have mushrooms available during summer, so with mushrooms it was not possible". Ok, I understand you don't have mushrooms at all for the whole summer... But I ordered the dishes 2 days before, so they had the time to write me and ask if it was ok with another sauce or if I prefer to change with another dish or at least they could warn me once I arrived at the restaurant. Instead, no one asked me and no one said anything and when I complained, the answer was not even polite! What if I don't like this other sauce or if I have allergies to it? Completely not professional and at least I would have expected a different kind of reply. If I add to this "disorder", the fact that they charged us 10% of service fee (are we in US?) and the service has been very very slow, they charged for bread, oil, parmesan and tap water (which is ridiculous in my opinion)... Then you would understand why I'm here to write this feedback. I hope that the feedback will be taken as constructive and not in a bad way! Feedbacks are used to improve the service and not to get offended! Anyway, this time the sentence "the customer is always right" was not valid at all! More likely the correct sentence would be "this is how I do in my restaurant and if you don't like, go somewhere else"....

Short review: if you don't want to be overcharged and treated badly, do not go.

Detailed review:

What works well: Food: good and tasty

What does NOT work well: Booking system: if you are a larger group of people (more than 6) you need to let them know what you are going to order at least one day in advance and they miss the flexibility to adjust if, for example, you want starter before main dish but you didn't let them know. Also, they got the wrong time of our arrival and once we got there it was clear that the food was warmed up

Service:

1. very slow and unprofessional. We completed our lunch after 3 hours ordering only couple of bruschettas, pasta (pre-ordered few days in advance) and dessert
2. impossible to find a menu online so you never know what is the actual offer and prices
3. very disorganized: when we highlighted the fact that we had ordered a dish with mushrooms and instead of that we got another one, the answer from the owner was that "it is not season for mushroom and cream". They should have let us know when we ordered the food and apologize for the inconvenience

Prices:

1. I find absurd to pay for tap water and something we did not ask, like oil, parmesan and bread, that were already on the table and have then been charged to us although many of us didn't eat it
2. if you are more than 6 (although the menu states more than 8) you get charged 10% on top because "people in the kitchen who work 13-14 hours a day need to get something also out of larger group of people". Basically it is mandatory tip. On top of that, we were 7 adults and 2 small kids who didn't eat anything besides 1 dessert.
3. the bill had mistakes that we unfortunately realized only once back home: we got charged for the mushroom dish that we ordered but never received and for a dish we never ordered and more expensive than the one we actually did

Attitude: They do not handle well critics and bad feedback and hardly admit when they are wrong. Typical arrogant behavior of who doesn't care...

I am sorry cause I did not expect to give such a vote to this restaurant where we have been coming with friends since years but this time the quality of the food did not compensate all the side bad aspects as you can also see from the bill attached. They have charged us for:

1. Olive oil (the bottle was on the table we did not even use it);
2. Parmesan (if you order ragù usually you put Parmesan on top…shouldn’t have use it?);
3. Bread (the only one which could make sense but we are talking about four slices of normal bread which we did not order anyway);
4. Tap water (never happened nowhere in SK);
5. They have introduced the service in SK…10% on the total amount (yes including tap water and olive oil);
6. We ordered pasta col ragù, which you cannot see in the bill but you see “tagliatelle with shrimps and cherry tomato” as replacement to that;
7. We ordered “saccottini with mushrooms”, they brought us without mushrooms and they charged for the price with mushrooms.

Service very very slow, if you are more than 6 people you need to tell them in advance at the time of booking what you will eat (crazy!) and do not choose so many different courses.

We were really disappointed and probably if the things have changed this way, we will not come back as the long way to come here by car is probably not worth...