IL Grillo — Restaurant in Hà Nội

This place mostly has great reviews, but my experience was very different. Upon entering the restaurant, I was hit with a stale smell. My waitress seemed to have a cold, with a very runny and stuffy nose — she kept sniffing and touching her face.

Our Caesar salad turned out to be just a regular salad with bell peppers, onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, and a basic dressing instead of Caesar dressing. It had no anchovies or Parmesan as described on the menu. When I brought this up with the waitress, she said the anchovies were in the dressing and that the Parmesan was somewhere at the bottom of the bowl. I showed her there wasn’t any, after which she tried to point out one tiny piece with her finger.

I politely asked if she had a cold and if she could please wear a face mask. She said it wasn’t a cold but just due to the season change (the start of autumn). Anyway, she didn’t wear a mask and instead sent another waiter to look after us, which we appreciated. It’s disappointing that the owners still make her work when she has cold.

The rest of our food — fettuccine with mushroom sauce and a Diavola pizza — was below average. The pasta was edible but tasted like something home-cooked by someone still learning. The pizza crust tasted like it came from a frozen supermarket pizza, though the toppings were acceptable.

When we finished, our second waiter asked if the food was good. I said we weren’t happy with it, but he didn’t make any effort to recover the service. As we were leaving, he said, “See you next time.”

There was an obvious lack of staff training and clear negligence from the owners and management in providing a better dining experience.

Regarding prices — for this level of quality, my dinner cost around 800k, which is about double what I would have expected to pay given the quality. For that amount, you can get at least a decent, well-prepared meal in Hanoi.

One more thing, please update the cheesy 80s and 90s Italian playlist and keep the volume at a...

if this were truly authentic Italian food as previous reviews have stated, I don't think I'd be a big fan of traditional Italian cuisine.

egg and parmesan soup was ok, but appearance wise it looks kinda like British dish back in the 40s when planes were still flying overhead.

spaghetti al granchio (kinda crab spaghetti) was truly a let down, like the sauce aint even creamy but it was just tomato sauce??? like grl if i wanted tomato sauce on my crab spaghetti I'd just swing it at home and def not paying 300k for that, but again I could just be an uncultured swine and didnt do any research on Italian specialties so that was on me tbh.

grilled fish with cream sauce and mashed potato was SO SO bland, like i added 2 more tbsp of salt and only then it was bearable.

pizza was the highlight of the meal, not because it's so good so amazing but only since other dishes fell flat on the floor.

i had such high expectations for this restaurant, coming here on valentine also. prices were also kinda steep so obviously didnt make up for the food quality, but at least we had a good laugh making fun...

Ambience: Cramped and hot. Air conditioning was just blowing cold air intermittently with just air.

Service: Most can't speak any English and not very friendly. Had to ask for pepper about 5 times before it came and even then, I couldn't get much out of it. The waitress saw me struggling trying to get pepper from it but ignored it. When I asked for help, hardly did anything and still didn't work properly.

Food: Worse minestrone soup which wasn't even tomato based. It was like hot water with vegetables. I told them I could not eat it after one spoonful. Worse thing is that they asked if I wanted another soup and they still charged me for the minestrone soup. The main was barely passable and the mousse was like a cross between mousse and ice-cream. Came here because of reviews but it wasn't accurate. Will not be coming here again.

Price: Not cheap - about 2m for 3 of us and certainly not value for money given the bad quality and service.

I don't give that many bad reviews...