Dinner at Mare Nostrum was hugely disappointing. The reviews I read online were totally misleading and after 3 weeks of consistently excellent food and service in Italy, my wife and I could not have been more appalled by the service, the long wait time for the arrival of hugely underwhelming dishes. The raison d'être of this restaurant claims to be the fresh seafood delivered from Sicily, yet the ingredients on the plate (when they eventually arrived) were bland and utterly unmemorable. The Taglioni pasta was swimming in sauce and tasted unbalanced and after an hour's wait, heavy going and unappetizing. The staff were consistently offhand and kept promising the arrival of the pasta course, but by the time our second dishes arrived, my wife and I had completely lost all interest in the idea of continuing our meal. The outside dining area is right next to a steady flow of traffic, with exhaust fumes wafting through the dated kitsch looking screen. The din of the cicadas and a crying child at the neighboring table certainly reinforced the impression that this is a restaurant that lacks intimacy, charm and any kind of ambience. The staff seemed genuinely uninterested in us and told us that our food was taking a long time to prepare because of the freshness of the ingredients. One glass of Sardinian Vermentino tasted like wine from a box and the only saving grace was the salt cod on toast, which anyone with a basic knowledge of Italian cuisine could have prepared at a moment's notice. This is a rip off restaurant and not to be recommended on any level. read more