Nicole in Rome

Occasion: Sunday Evening Dinner

Initial Impressions: We pass this place all the time. It looks nice and is in a touristic area. It was about 3/4 full when we arrived and 1/2 full when we left. It was relatively easy to maneuver around the restaurant. I can give them an A for trying to be handicap accessible more than other restaurants. There was even a handicap stairlift for the way down to the bathroom. However, there were two small steps beyond the stairlift to access the bathroom. Overall, I would say this restaurant is wheelchair and handicap friendly (if you don’t mind having to take the extra two steps down to the bathroom). We made a last second reservation and showed up twenty minutes later. We were seated immediately. The menus were given to us in only Italian (although I think they have English versions of the menu). The way to the restaurant from the Main Street (Via del Corso passing McDonalds) was a bit sketchy. Someone had an entire setup on a ledge, with a bed, shower curtain for privacy, and even face timing on his phone. So location is a bit sketch…

Once Seated: The main part of the dining room is nice. It is reminiscent of American steakhouses. Being a bit homesick, I enjoyed this ambience. It was also really warm inside the restaurant. Borderline hot, which is funny because I’m anemic and always cold. The lamp on our table ran out of batteries and they replaced it for us. However the lighting was way too dark. When the toy lamp went off we were basically reading in the dark. When we were given a new one I found that both of us were holding our menus under the tiny lamp to read our menu. They should look into at least having some lights on dimly. None of the ceiling lights were on. It was actually pretty funny. I was watching servers and food runners bump into each other the entire night. The wine list is good. They also offer a selection of beers from Open Baladin as well as cocktails!

The Food: The food was good, but you will see by the end of the review why I had to round down from four stars to three. They know how to make pasta here. The menu was a bit complicated to navigated but for antipasti we had two orders of Il Nostro Croissant con Porchetta, Burro E Acciughe, for primi I had Tortellini Artigianali di Bologna doppia panne e parmigiana 36 Messi and Paolo had Tonnarelli fatti in casa cacao e pepe. We stoped there because we were full and had two orders of Strudel Caldo Di Mele Annurche.

4/5 Il Nostro Croissant con Porchetta, Burro E Acciughe: So this was a croissant with butter and prochetta. There was supposed to be anchovy, but I didn’t see or taste any luckily. The croissant was warm flakey and satisfying. The butter was nice. However, porhcetta was already oily, so having porchetta with a buttered croissant wasn’t the best idea. Actually I wouldn’t have minded the butter combo so much if they had given me a good crispy porchetta. This one was good but lacked the crust. Regardless, I would eat this again, but we wouldn’t have one order each.

5/5 Tortellini Artigianali di Bologna Doppia Panne e Parmigiana 36 Messi: The tortellini was so good. I was nervous because it would be my first time having tortellini in a restaurant in Rome and not homemade. It didn’t disappoint. The parmigiana wasn’t so salty and the dish was perfectly seasoned. It was rich but without a salt bomb of porchetta like other pasta dishes like carbonara have. I recommend this also if you like to dip your bread in the remaining sauce.

5/5 Tonnarelli fatti in casa cacio e pepe: This Cacio e pepe was good. I would say the dish is heavy enough that the portion was perfect. It was nicely seasoned and I enjoyed the fresh black pepper cracked over it.

3/5 Strudel Caldo Di Mele Annurche: Um so it’s in the name…Strudel Caldo. The Strudel did not come out caldo, it came lukewarm (I’m being nice it was room temp/cold) lol. Also I think that the pistachio gelato or nutty flavored gelato they served with the strudel with didn’t match. The strudel called for a classic vanilla or fresh milk flavored icecream. It was disappointing. Also there were burnt bits of like chocolate cookie or something as garnish. They should skip that and opt for a caramel drizzle next time. Gosh, I was so excited for this dessert and it sucked. I can’t recommend it to you guys, I’m sorry.

Service: Um this is where I had to give Baccano 3 stars for bad business practice. We were charged twice for bread. This is annoying because the food runner took our first bread basket that was unfinished without asking and then gave us a new one. Very unprofessional and I don’t appreciate when restaurants pull fast ones like this one us. Especially when you are in a touristy place and paying a premium. Also for dessert, they gave us our desserts at staggered times, so I ended up eating and finishing my strudel while Paolo watched before his came out and then I watched him eat his strudel because I was finished with mine. A four star or five star restaurant would not do this. Also I was watching too many servers bump into each other which does not happen even at tiny restaurants like Sora Lella. There is absolutely no reason the servers should be running into each other and having accidents like tripping etc. with that much space in the restaurant and it’s not like they were complete busy or the food was coming out quickly for them to be rushing anyways. So it’s either because the lights are all off and they can’t see each other or they weren’t trained. And guessing by how they charged us twice for the bread baskets, this is not trained properly.

Payment: The total cost was 110 euros. I was paid for so I don’t know if they accept American Express but the bill surprised me. Mainly because I didn’t expect the bread to be charged twice and for each dessert to be 12 euros. To put some perspective, 12 euros is the cost of a primi pasta dish at le Tavernelle and my tortellini was 24 euros. So very much a touristy spot. But I understand if you come here wanting to pay for the ambience. It’s not as bad as il marchese. I would say it’s a tiny bit better, but we can do better than this and I don’t know if I have it in me to give them another shot when I feel so short changed over the bread and the dessert.