義瑪卡多餐酒咖啡館 天母店 iL Mercato Wine Cafe Tianmu — Restaurant in Shilin District

To whom it may concern,

Last last the dining experience was very unpleasant. I felt disrespected and discriminated.

My friend ordered some cheese SALAD. It turned out the name actually didn't refer the salad we usually reckon, which contains lots of vege. Especially, the flavor of cheese and hem is very rich, we need more greens to balance the palate. We asked you the give us more greens and you turned down for the reason we should study the picture of the dish on the next page of menu. I couldn't believe I come here for tested my thoroughness of reading the menu but not to enjoy and relax in your restaurant.

Our seat locates on the 2nd of the are right in front of the air outlet. Two set of guests sitting next to us asked to change their seats and the waiter took them to other seats right away on the same floor. After they left, we felt cold too and at first we tried to not to add more burden to you so my friend asked the waitress to turn down air condition. She swiftly did it for us. But, later on we felt colder and colder and we caught a bit so I requested the waiter to charge seat for us. The reply he gave to me was to turn down the air condition again but I insisted to change seat. So he asked your manager and came back with the answer to arrange us downstairs next to exit. I accepted it because I felt like having no other options. In fact, there was still vacancy on the 2nd floor, but I guessed you wouldn’t be respectfully enough to arrange that for us.

However, the following 2 hours of dining turned to a disaster for us. Reflecting on the service given to us, I felt like totally discriminated. I wish I could find a better reason for you but I couldn’t since you changed seats for the other two guests RIGHT AWAY without further suggesting to turn down the air condition first and put them on the same floor.

We booked in advance and there were only two of us. We finally put to the table for four on the first floor where every other tables filled with more than four people happily talking.

It should be a wonderful time enjoying the cuisine after a hard work day and yet an expensive and top restaurant like yours gave us the worst possible service.

Regards, your...

Used to be an il mercato lover, was thinking it as a great place to drink and chat w friends in Tianmu and always a first thought of me when I wanna get a drink w friends here. But as the times go by, they start to change the rule slightly, from no service charge to 10% service charge ( I don’t see what’s the value of their service), wine becomes more expensive and plus 10%, package cheese no longer serve in store, that’s only for take away, if you wanna have some cheese in store, you could only order the cheese plate(around ntd450), and the top up wine card from no card fee becomes ntd$ 100 per car and no refund!!!!!!! And the most incredible thing is they start to charge minimum expense per customers, which is one client has to order one thing, if you order a bottle of wine, that could only count as two persons expense! I feel so sad to see Il mercato changes for the past three years, plus I never feel warm of their service staff there. Maybe the owner has his/her difficulties of running a restaurant, but from a customer perspective, I feel sad for the change of this restaurant, they charge more but I can’t see the service/product improves as their charge! If your target no longer an easy going chilled cafe/bar, you better provide a more delicates product/service...

iL Mercato food was excellent, and in class of fine dining. The cooking is very authentic while the price were very reasonable, both food and wines. It is cheap compared to HK, Singapore or Shanghai for this standard of quality.

The bad press was most likely misunderstanding and misinterpretation since the management are foreigners, and very friendly. Some of the "low" reviews are totally uncalled for, especially if they have never been in iL Mercato.

Fine dining experience is quite rare in Taiwan thus we should be delighted a restaurant like iL Mercato has opened here in Taipei. Hong Kong have 90 Michelin Stars, and Singapore have about 40 Stars while Taiwan have about five Stars. It is sad since our population is 5-6X more than either country, and our most famous restaurant is a dumpling restaurant.... iL Mercato will get their Star in time. Keep up...