Casa D´Aragona — Restaurant in Valencia

Very frustrated with this place. I really wanted to like it. It has a lovely ambience, real candles, a nice layout, lovely interior stone wall exposure, etc. The wait staff were quite friendly and enthusiastic, but seemed a bit confused and lacking clear leadership. It all felt a bit unmanaged. This aside however, the real disappointment on the night was the food. Perhaps it was just a bad combination of circumstance for us as so many others seem to regularly be loving it, but our food was pretty bad. We weren't terribly hungry and only ordered a bruschetta starter and two mains. We did get a free stuzzichino (amuse bouche), which was essentially a mini bruschetta with a ricotta type cheese and a roasted cherry tomato on top (why is this the thing they give away, when it's so similar in style to an item already on the menu? Surely this must have occurred to somebody at some point?)... but who can really complain about a free bit of food? Sadly it was served on an utterly stale thick crostini. Shades of things to come. The actual bruschetta didn't fare too much better. The crostini/bread was pre-prepped (who knows when?) and piled with whole roasted red and yellow cherry tomatoes, and a tiny sprig of basil on top. Not at all the fresh crunch of recently grilled or toasted bread, and the delicate combination of tomato, basil, olive oil etc. we expected. Ham fisted would be an apt description. I've had better bruschetta, well... pretty much everywhere else... which is actually somewhat disturbing. When our mains came, my wife's food was acceptable, while my pasta dish with ragu was literally inedible. The ragu was lacking in subtlety, complexity, love, whatever you want to describe it as... it was instead tired and worn out tasting..."muddy" and smacked of basic ingredients having been overcooked rather than a range of lovley ingredients slow cooked to perfection...hey ho... I still would have eaten it without a complaint. However, the pasta itself was raw. I initially sent it back, only to receive a second one, this time cooked slightly more, but again, basically inedible. I gave up at that point. The manager did come to the table to discuss, but seemed more interested in defending the bad food, explaining that it was correct despite my opinion, and that the chefs were from Italy, and that she was from Naples so she knows it's right (I can't imagine she tried a bit of the untouched part of my dish... how could she? It would be impossible for anyone with a palate to not see how bad it was). Simply being born Italian doesn't automatically mean that you know food, or know how to cook food well. I've been a chef for about 40 years, trained and cooked in the Napa Valley in California, eaten Michelin starred Italian food, eaten all over Italy, from the finest restaurants to the most mild mannered trattorias...I've made more pasta than that most folks could shake a stick at, by hand, and by extruder. I'm telling you, the pasta was not al dente. It was raw, inedibly chewy... no excuses. Undoubtedly the manager will defend herself here and passive aggressively work to save face and paint it differently...(not the reaction of a seasoned and wise manager) but the fact is that the food I personally had on that night, was just rubbish. Perhaps another item off their menu, on another night, would have had me praising the establishment, but it was a lose lose on this night. To add insult to injury it then took us quite a while to sort the bill as they charged us for my uneaten pasta (I literally had to spit it out it was so bad...maybe three bites between the two attempted servings, one swallowed, and two spat into a napkin) and overcharged for the wine... we finally got the bill corrected and happily tipped the lovely but somewhat poorly prepared staff. It wasn't their fault. With the right management, they...

Possibly one of the worst experiences I have had in a restaurant. The service was non-existent. We were seated at 19:30 and were there until 22:00. We had to repeatedly get the waiters attention to receive our drinks, and recite our order at least twice. The bruschetta as a shared starter took 50 minutes to arrive. Then we should have received our main courses, where we each ordered one. After 40 further minutes one of the dishes arrived and was deemed “to share”, where we never mentioned we were sharing. In my opinion, to grant an excuse as to why the other main course was not there. They claim to have understood it wrong. Once I finished my plate, the waiter arrives and FINALLY notices a missing second main course. Another half hour passes between getting the first and second main course. No compensation was offered for the lousy service they provided. I would like to mention, that this same day, Cappuccino’s at the Plaza de la Reina, never charged us for the food we had, because there we also had to wait an hour. We did not expect them to do that, but were pleasantly surprised, because we never complained. When running a restaurant, please consider not arguing with a friendly customer and offering stupid excuses. We felt invisible and will remain invisible, because we are...

It seems to me that all these 5* reviews are fake...

We booked a table for 3 persons for 14.02.2025. When entering the restaurant, nobody welcomed us, so we stood by the door for at least 5 minutes. Then we were guided to our table which was set only for 2 persons. Why? I had a booking for 3 persons and the restaurant new it! Then why only 2 plates? All the other guests were greeted with welcome drink since it was Valentine's day, except for us. The food was very mediocre. We had to wait for the starter for 45 minutes. When my husband asked for the bread and olive oil, the waiter replied that "we don't serve it in Italian restaurant" :)))

Tartare di Tonno had too much mustard in it; Pasta con Ragu had too much salt, inedible; The dessert Tiramisu was tasteless.

During all 2 hours we were there we had to scream for the waiters to come to our table... Terrible service. Also, the music was too loud and we did not like the interior - all the "antique pictures" are in fact poor-quality poster-like canvas.

My advice - don't go there and spend your time and money in other restaurants were you will be valued...