Starting off this review by stating we are from a food centric city (New Orleans), eat out very regularly, and have been to several Michelin restaurants. We chose the 8 course tasting menu. We were seated and were offered what was very much presented as a "complimentary" pour of a Spumante by the sommelier. The sommelier eventually came back around and we chose a wine that was fermented in an amphora at the price of 120 Euros; I told him I was a fan of amphora wines and was super excited about the bottle purely for the usage of the amphora and small production. First the glasses were brought out and were smudged which I thought was not becoming of a supposed 1-star restaurant. The sommelier presented the wine and poured the first bit in the glass and stood waiting for me to assess the wine. The wine had an overwhelming nose and flavor of acetic acid and ethyl acetate to the point of being completely undrinkable. I immediately told him the bottle was not good, and we did not wish to continue with it. He wanted to argue how the profile was absolutely fine for this wine and it was drinkable. Without getting into my personal background, I have an extremely diverse background in fermentation science and sensory analysis of fermented beverages. I explained to him in very specific terminology that the amount presented was not acceptable and it was a flaw as it made the wine completely undrinkable. He stood there, still looking at me holding the bottle expecting to take it. This was nothing more than a Mexican standoff at this point and his pretentiousness of just standing there and looking at me was making me extremely uncomfortable. So I told him I would wait to see if the acetic and ethyl acetate would off-gas from the original tasting pour (which it did not after sitting out for several minutes) . Several minutes later I asked the waiter to just take the bottle and glasses away at which point he hurried back over and I told him the aroma and flavor were still as bad as when presented and we were not going to drink it.
Moving into the 8 course menu, we found 4 out of the 8 corses to be of any noteable quality with the other 4 courses being either bland, over thought out creating clashes in flavor, or just straight unremarkable.
At the end of the day, the meal cost 350 euro's.... The bottle in question was not taken off and the "complimentary" Spumante was not and we were charged 12 Euro's a glass for it. I can honestly say that in 10 days in Tuscany, Florence, and Sicily on our trip it was easily the worst meal we had. There is an infinite amount of places in Palermo that will easily give you 10 times the quality for 1/10th the amount of money. read more