Pirilo Pizza Rustica - Old San Juan — Restaurant in San Juan

If you want to be treated poorly and like an outsider this is the place to be. If you don't speak fluent spanish it will be hard to interact here. Other restaurants with better food, service, and prices: Serafina and Via Appia's

Firstly, with a party of 5, we put our names down for about a 45 minute wait. We returned after an hour where the very rude host (Ricardo) would only speak in Spanish to our friend who lives here in PR. He told us that we were up next and would be about another 15 minutes. We return around that time where he then realizes he called the wrong number (huh??), sat some random party, and had already crossed our names off the list.

At this point we are starving so he says we will be seated next. No apology or anything. As we stand there, he actually seats a party of 11 who had only been there 30 minutes and we watch as he brings them upstairs. I guess he feels guilty about that so he also sends us upstairs (out of sight out of mind I guess) to wait by their bar. We literally are like blocking the entrance because it is an awkward spot to be. I am assuming that Ricardo did not tell his manager about us as we stand there for another 15 minutes in the doorway and not once did anyone ask if we needed help.

I, a native English speaker, try to flag down the manager and twice he brushes me off without letting me explain myself. After another party of 6 gets seated right in front of us, I again try and speak to the manager who flags us down and tells me to wait without letting me explain how I think Ricardo did not tell anyone about our current 2 hour wait situation. He brushes me off and my friend who speaks spanish and lives in PR is the ONLY person to get him to stop moving and explains. Again, no apologies for the situation, but seats us at the next opportunity.

Look, mistakes happen and I get it. But a lack of apology, attempts to fix the situation, or even the ability to look me in the eye was disappointing. There is poor communication all around. Add on to that some weak food, I would recommend going somewhere else to eat. Overpriced as well.

I had the mushroom ravioli and found it entirely too salty as well as a piece of linguini on my plate meaning they don't clean or even rinse their pans in between cooks. Pizza was undercooked, but I did enjoy the prosciutto they had. Server was bare bones and minimally interactive with us. Manager did not come by once during the meal which was totally okay but I did wish he would at least have apologized once for the 2 hour+ wait time and mistake by Ricardo. I would not trust a restaurant who doesn't take responsibility when they make a mistake as I can't imagine how that would affect quality...

We’ve heard lots of wonderful things about this place, and the menu looked so creative! My pizza was good…But it was underwhelming. Perhaps, It’s one of those cases where the menu looks excellent, but the execution is potentially a little bit off. This sometimes happens in pizza places. The menu looks creative and fun, and either the ingredients just don't combine well or there’s not enough toppings, or often there is too much cheese, but the end result is something that looks gorgeous on the menu and tastes okay, but since it sounds so amazing, your hopes are a little dashed.

We ordered a couple of different pizzas in what we thought were interesting combinations. We had the tripleta, which is topped with potato sticks and ketchup mayo. And I think there way too many potato sticks. I grew up eating potato sticks! They were in my lunchbox when I was in elementary school. I was so excited. And it provided a great crunch, but, maybe cut down on the amount of potato sticks! And a lot of cheese. Thus the seasoned pork felt like an afterthought. So more meat, less potato sticks. Less cheese.

We also ordered the Tampiquena, because we were excited about the Carnitas. But it was also very cheesy. The cheese-to-meat ratio was not what we expected. So again, the cheese sort of tampered down what would’ve been something really flavorful. So overall, this place is a four, but I can’t help looking at the menu and thinking potentially we ordered incorrectly or that some of the other pizzas were more flavor-forward?

My veggie daughter had the vegana and turned it into a calzone and she thought it was very good.

We ordered “to go” so we could take it back to our hotel, and my understanding is that the place itself has a great atmosphere, but I’m only reviewing the pizza since we...

We were told it would be an hour and 45 minute wait. We were only 2 people willing to sit at the bar so they called us only after 30 minutes. The place itself, atmosphere, drink options and pizza were really good. BUT our waiter (we sat at the bar) forgot to put our order in and we had to ask if the pizza normally took this long after waiting for 1.5 hours. He said the ticket must have got lost but even if that was the case, he should have been checking for our Pepperoni pizza. He was very young but gave us plates after we ordered so we thought it was taking so long because they were just busy. He was goofing off a lot, flirting with the waitresses and drinking drinks from ones he messed up or made extra of and we constantly had to ask for another drink ourselves or a glass of water since he didn't ask himself though we were sitting right in front of him the whole time. His coworker helped us a few times. After he wasn't apologetic at all and insisted it would only take 15 more minutes (I was ready to walk around the corner to the pizza place that sells slices), it took 30 more minutes to get it. I caused a bigger scene than necessary to get the manager to take care of the food portion of the bill since it took 2 hours since we ordered it and from the quality of it, it was obviously rushed to be made but in the end she did take some of our drinks off of the bill. How upset it made me and how much time we spent there, and couldn't go anywhere else by the time we got out of there, made me over react but the manager was still nice to me and kept her composure. It's definitely a place to check out in Old San Juan, just don't be afraid to ask if things are taking too long...