Cagla O.
Yelp
This was our first restaurant in Florence and our worst restaurant experience in Italy, during our 9 day stay there. If I could give it negative stars I would. We went there with our 1 yr old, the food
was good but our waiter was absolutely terrible, rude and unprofessional. If you see a young blonde guy as a waiter there, do whatever you can to avoid being served by him. He was impatient with an arrogant attitude during our entire dining experience. We felt rushed and pressure to order asap. He was getting annoyed that we didn't put in our order during the first two times he stopped by because we were trying to get settled down with our baby. After the food arrived, he did not stop by to see if we needed anything else and we were trying extra hard to get his attention. This was likely because he was too preoccupied serving his girlfriend over at the next table at the same time, spending a ton of time at her table. He either wasn't noticing us trying flag him down or just ignoring us - not sure which is worse but we eventually ended up flagging another waiter. But that wasn't even the worst part.
When we asked for the bill, we saw we were charged for a service charge for 3 people. Service charges are pretty common in places like Italy and everywhere we've been, we've been getting charged for a service charge for 2 people. But to charge us for 3 and count our 1 yr old as one person to charge for was ridiculous. When I was going through the bill at the end, I asked our waiter why the service charge was for 3 - if was actually for our 1 yr old baby that didn't eat or if it was a mistake - he had the audacity to say that it was indeed a charge for 3 and argued that the baby counted as a full person. I couldn't believe it and the second I questioned it he got extremely uncomfortable, defensive and aggressive. I'm not sure if he tried to attempt this thinking we were dumb tipsy tourists after a bottle of wine but when he saw I wasn't getting fooled, he tried to give me back cash for the extra that he charged us. It's not at all about the few extra euros but about being taken for a fool, when you go somewhere expecting good food and good service, and an appreciation for your business, especially as a tourist and a visitor.
When I wanted to speak to someone else that worked there, perhaps a manager or another waiter, I could see our waiter getting even more uncomfortable, nervous and rude. When a couple of the waiters at the bar noticed the tense interaction and came over, I asked one of them about the cover charge and he explained that cover charges in Italy are standard. I said "of course I understand". Then when I asked how many people should have been charged for at my table, he said 2. When I showed him that I was charged for 3, including the baby, he went quiet and you could tell that he was embarrassed for our young waiter who got caught trying to take advantage of a young tourist couple with a baby. The other waiter that came by said "oh but he gave the charge for 1 back, it must have been a computer error". Yeah right... It was absurd, and you could tell they were all scrambling to cover for the one idiot that would do such a petty, embarrassing thing. It's a shame because the rest of the staff were pretty friendly and nice during our dinner and the atmosphere was great (outside of our waiter). But since we had this experience here, I wonder how many times this guy did this to customers and got away without anyone noticing.
Long story short, if you're considering going here because of the food, I recommend think twice. If you're in Florence, Italy, chances are you are around tons and tons of other restaurants with amazing food and atmosphere. You can probably find one without a shady waiter acting like he's doing you a favor by serving you and trying to steal a few extra euros from you on top of that. Out of all the restaurants we've been to in Italy, this was the most (and only) disappointing place with a negative experience for us so that should tell you something.