Ristorante Grottino Ticinese — Restaurant in Circolo di Bellinzona

I mean. I didn't get the existing reviews, maybe I missed out something but here is my experience:

Tried to order the gnocchi - out of stock Tried to order the trout - out of stock Ordered a coke zero - got full sugared Ordered a tartare - the toast arrived 10-15min later, after I made them aware of it, despite the butter arriving forefront 🤷‍♂️ My girlfriend ordered the spaghetti instead of the gnocchi - arrived barely warm enough. I can tell you she had to hurry... when I received my toasts she was already done The presentation was to my opinion also catastrophic. I mean, there was none. The tartare is served in a bowl with a spoon and go for it. The risotto is like served in a big plate, not even a tiny touch of something (e.g some parsley or I don't know what else on the top to make it somewhat mouthwatering).

Overall atmosphere was also soso, rusty and dusty, the curtains were the right size to fall ON the tables, hence your plate. Whatever :).

Despite all this, the waiter was nice and did his best with what he had.

To the owners, be careful... If you continue like that, it won't end well.

Good luck...

Great, creative vegan options! The dogs got waterbowls too.

There were 4 vegan options on the evening menu, and apparently there's more in the afternoon, including desserts. The vegan gnocchi with pistachio pesto were very tasty, the "chicken" basket was good too. I wish there were more vegan options in the evening too, but 4 is of course already great.

Only thing we didn't like was not due to the restaurant, but another guest. One of our two dogs suddenly got very agitated and started barking shortly after we sat down outside. At first we thought he'd seen a cat or a squirrel, but after a while we realised a man on a table next to us kept staring at our dog unblinkingly. So this is obviously not the fault of the restaurant, but you might want to know that some weirdos frequent that place, as well as lovely people like the young woman who came over to...

Though it is certainly a good walk away, it is worth it. This quaint, rustic feeling little place is a wonderful chance to see the other side of Bellinzona, a chance to partake in a place that feels highly authentic and reasonably priced for the area. They were quite nice to have a vegan section to the menu (I got the presta gnocci and it was superb) and were surprisingly quick, having our food out in less than 20 minutes. The only dislike was that some of the food was unnecessarily pricey (like the scaloppina di maiale impanata), so I would recomend staying away from some of the more...