La Bottega dei Sapori Altea — Restaurant in Altea

My puttanesca pasta was delicious and full of flavour. I was pleased to see that they also had Ichnusa on the menu- very Italian! The pizza my partner had was a disappointment, however. On the 4 cheese pizza, there was no marinara sauce! We have holidayed in Italy many times and had many a pizza in Italy (specifically many a 4 cheese pizza) and they have all had marinara sauce. This meant the pizza tasted very dry and was practically just bread and cheese- I may say, maybe not even classed as a pizza!

The service was mediocre, it seems to be a pattern across altea that the service is rather slow, so I’m not sure if this is just Spanish style and I am impatient. The inside of the restaurant was standard, something worth a mention is that new place mats might be a nice addition as the plastic was peeling off them and they were looking rather rough.

But it was very cheap for...

The food was okay even though our waiter said, 'Its very good, yes?' We said, Its okay just', which was ignored. Portion sizes are like rations. Poor review was due to the waiter with the glasses who decided to fleece us. We asked for a bottle of house white or rose. He said 'white?' and we said, 'Yes'. He decided to open a bottle of wine which was priced at 36 euros, not house white, without gaining our permission. Same bottle retails in shops for about 9 euros BTW. I couldn't believe that for a portion of tomato bread and 2 pasta dishes with house white, came to 77 euros! I complained to the owner/manager that we hadn't chosen this wine. He said he would review our bill and took off 6 euros and gave us a tiny shot each! I didn't want to cause a scene so we paid and left. The most expensive meal we had in...

I want to preface this by stating the staff was very friendly. The service was typical.

My reason for posting a review, which I never do: We chose this place based on the excellent reviews, particularly for the lasagna. It is their house specialty. The lasagna entree arrived maybe two noodles thick, and nothing but shaved ham, mushroom and bechamel. This alone was disappointing, but the $22 price tag for less than 3 ounces of food was appalling. I have attached a picture of the full entree, untouched, other than cut to share.

We also shared a pizza Norma, which was surprisingly tasteless. There is one bottle of chili oil for the entire restaurant to share.

We had a nice drink and enjoyed the outdoor atmosphere, but I cannot recommend this...