Rosario — Restaurant in Kadıköy

ENGLISH, GO TO THE END FOR ITALIAN

During my first visit to Istanbul, I decided to try some Italian restaurant, as to see how Italian food looks like abroad. It's something I use to do everywhere I go, and I always try to be open minded about it, and to understand the differences and limitations and such places have. I came with a group of five people, they were Turkish, and I was the only Italian. The place was really nice, with some beautiful furniture, funny maps of cheese and wine around Italy, old Italian music in the background, maybe a bit too much stereotypically Italian, but nevertheless really nice, it was exactly what I hoped for. We sat down, waited for the last two friends to come, and then I started looking at the menù. The menù was something. At first, I felt like I lost my ability to speak Italian. Out of 117 dishes (not including beverages), 17 had grammatically wrong names, all the fillet (8) had filetto spelled wrong (filletto), and many just didn't make a whole lot of sense. Funniest ones were Bistecco, Rucola di Parmagiona, and my personal favourite: Porcini all'aglio con burro e funghi. The menù is available online on their Instagram page, if you want to take a look. Anyway, except for the grammatical errors, the menù is also VERY not Italian. Caprese had about 8 ingredients (one of which is "Tramezini"), there were many unusual pasta combinations ("Spaghetti al Bolognese", "Tagliatelle aglio olio origana", etc.), when I asked what was inside the ravioli they told me Tomato, they had the infamous Fettuccine Alfredo, many other dishes had some really weird stuff going on ("Penne arrabbiata" had olives, for example). Overall a very rich menù, with a lot of dishes, most of which were very disappointing. We ordered two Penne arrabbiata, one Carpaccio, one Spaghetti frutti di mare, and finally I asked for Pappardelle Bolognese, which was not on the menù. I really appreciated how the waiter asked if it was a thing in Italy, since he didn't hear of it before. So the food arrived, together with some wine (I'll talk about that later). I only tried the Penne and my pappardelle. Quality of pasta seemed nice, and the hand made pappardelle were also good. However, the sauces were something else. Arrabbiata sauce had olives and other stuff in it, very different from Italian arrabbiata, and also nothing special, but okay. The ragù however was terrible. It was like they put tomato sauce, vegetables and meat together, and cooked it for twenty minutes, then called it a day. I'm not even sure if there was celery, I could only taste the carrots and the tomato. I had low expectations for it, but not this low. In the end we took all these things, plus 2 deserts (I can't remember them, but I think they were pretty good), and about 6-7 glasses of wine, plus water, coffee, a cappuccino, and Sambuca. The price of wine was simply stupid. A bottle of Chianti Piccini, which is about 12 euros in Italy, was 3000 Turkish Lira. Which at this time amounts to about 90 euros. Even considering taxes, it is still a completely crazy price. Out of this world. When I asked for Sambuca in my espresso, the waiter, with some arrogance, dare I say it, said that they don't go well together, and recommended Martini instead. I don't pretend they know every little detail about Italian culture, not at all, but bro, I'm literally Italian, don't act like you know anything about Italian food with a menù like that. Anyway, total was about 1100 Turkish Lira per person (about 35 euro). Crazy price, for the really low value offered, and to have, out of 2 waiters that served the table, a very arrogant one (but the other one, older, was very polite and kind).

So overall, would I recommend it? No. Not even if you are Turkish. It is just simply not worth it, and even if it was cheaper, it still wouldn't be, as the quality wasn't there, the recipes weren't there, the tradition was gone out of the window, together with the grammar. I hope they redesign the menù from scratch, correct all the mistakes, and finally make better...

I went back to Rosario after a very long time and was disappointed in a very big way. My father who went back last year was also disappointed. It was very good under the Sicilian management but has changed hands for a few years now and this is obviously the reason why.. The 275 tl risotto was an absolute disaster! Supermarket ready made risottos are 10 times better and I'm not exaggerating! The buffala pizza was also not good. The mozarella comes as one block when you bite on the side which leaves nothing on the rest of that slice to which the waiter tells me mozarella is not supposed to be soft but hard...what a joke! May i suggest you use Buffa instead of Rani as that will give you a soft and tasty mozarella...anyway i expect a refund for the horrible meal i had with my partner to celebrate her birthday which turned out to...

We went there on an afternoon as two adults and a three year old. Stuff is nice and they had a lovely high chair which is great. The service was fast. The food is okay but not great. We paid 2100tl for a gnocchi, an appetizer which is basically mushrooms, a meat dish and a tiramisu and two glasses of wine. I think the food is very overpriced. We sat in the garden since it was a summer day. The top was covered. They sat us at a table very close to air conditioning even though we were the only people there so I asked them to change the table. The said they can shut this air conditioner off and turn another one on but at some point it got really hot and we were all sweating and it was also kind of dark there even though the sun was shining outside. Overall it was ok but not amazing. I think it is just an...