All you need to know - don't go here if you are not Italian.
My husband and I got in from a long train ride and saw this place was close to our hotel so headed out for a late dinner. We were charged a "coperti" of 1.5€ each, despite coperti (cover charge) being against the law in Lazio, where Rome is located. We pointed this out to the waiter, who lied and said everyone was charged a cover in all of Rome's restaurants.
Even though he adamantly defended its legitimacy, once we pushed on the point the woman who brought us our bill snatched it away and wrote up another one without the illegal charge. Then the waiter said it was a "fake" bill they were giving us, which made no sense (his English miraculously went from quite good to terrible once there was a problem with their billing).
It being our first night in the city, we thought perhaps we were mistaken, so we left him a generous tip of 5€. We also felt bad we had possibly been incorrect, so left quickly from the awkward situation without my husband counting the change carefully. Turns out, they shorted us by 10€. Our waiter did find us and return it, which I give him credit for.
Unfortunately, his morals are clearly much higher than those of this establishment's owners, as our hotel's manager confirmed for us that cover charges are against the law and that Italians rarely ever tip. If you don't want to feel like you're getting screwed for being a tourist, stay away from this place. And to cheat someone out of just 3€ just makes it seem as though they hate foreigners, as you're hardly going to make yourself rich off that, just make people hate your restaurant and ensure you never return.
Although it's secondary to what tainted our experience so much, the food was also just barely average and the service was terribly slow - we had to flag down the waiter to bring us our wine more than 15 minutes after ordering the bottle.
So even if I were deemed of the correct nationality by the staff to not be taken advantage of with the bill, the food was absolutely not worth a second chance. I would give it negative stars if I could. read more