We were pretty excited to come here from looking at the menu and the prix fixe menu, plus it was a short walk from our hotel while staying in Rome.
Things started well. Our waiter cordially said he would give us some "gift" after dinner (presumed to be some sort of digestive but our family is unable to drink). We sat outside and the menu was nothing like what we saw it was inside the conjoined hotel, and the waiter gladly brought the "inside restaurant" menu along with the "outside menu".
We ordered the three fish tartare, grilled veg and leek tart, seafood pizza, baby calamari and veg tempura, and lamb chops. Seeing that the restaurant is part of a five-star hotel, we knew it would be pricy and portions could be small, but we didn't know they would be that small compared to other high-rating restaurants in the area with much sizable portions.
The complimentary bread was nice. The tartare was nice, though it was also 30 euros. The seafood pizza had little seafood on it, mostly very small mussels/clams and squid/octopus.
The grilled veg wasn't really seasoned, and the leek tart was smaller than my palm.
The tempura was nice but it was also the size of an appetizer at a sushi restaurant. The lamb chops were definitely the biggest let down. Two tiny portions, pistachio crusts totally falling off, with so much more juicy potential missing.
The food was so slow in getting out because they waited to present everything at the same time, without asking our preference.
The icing on the cake was the lousy service. Our cordial waiter and other waiters present preceded to ignore us for the remainder of the evening, despite catching their eye and literally waving at them. They cleared our plates and didn't come back, until waving at them (and probably 10-15 minutes passed in between then). We ordered some tiramisu since our initial waiter had sung its praises.
Upon its arrival, the sun had set, our parents wanted to sightsee more, and so they left us and asked for their tiramisu to be boxed up. Upon the arrival of the tiramisu, we asked for one to be boxed up, and I kid you not, a massive eye roll and unbelievably unprofessional "are you serious" look crossed our waiter's face, and he took it away. I never knew boxing up a dessert could be so hard.
The tiramisu was small of course, but had a nice balance of crunchy and cream.
This was overall a huge disappointment. The food tasted good but it was insanely small portioned and over priced. Come here if you have loads of time to spare and want to be ignored by the staff or even better, be made to feel like you are a huuuuuuge burden for asking to have your tiramisu to-go. Eat the complimentary bread. read more