Da Paolo used to be one of my favourite restaurants for many years. However, as I hadn’t visited the restaurant for more than a year, I was very eager to dine there again. So last night I went with two friends and was very dissapointed....Unfortunately the food varied from acceptable to horrible. We were served a moderately tasty meat dish and a tasty but very oily Lasagne. Myself, I ordered a seafood pasta (Frutti di Mare) that I had had there many times in the past and it was always very good. Last night, the dish was so horrible that after trying 2-3 bites I didn’t want to touch it no more. Returning a whole dish was a first one for me. Surprisingly, the waiters simply collected it and did not even bother to ask why it was untouched.
For dessert, we had a poor chocolate Soufflé, which was actually a lava cake and a Millefoglie, which was admittedly very tasty and balanced. The Millefoglie and the starter (Bruschetta Rustica) were the only dishes we really enjoyed.
Overall, the service was very poor. There were plenty of waiters, polite and seemingly willing to serve but apparently amateur.
- They kept pushing us while trying to serve the adjacent tables that were literally stuck next to each other (no safe distance according to the pandemic situation whatsoever).
- Very soon after having served the appetizer, they came hurriedly to gather the appetizer together with our dishes, because the main dishes were already prepared. Even though we were clearly not finished, they leaned over the table to gather everything and we told them to leave them for two more minutes. They insisted because the main dishes were already taken out of the kitchen and they had to be served immediately.
- They did not bring or ask whether we required any Parmesan along with the pasta. We had to ask them to bring some.
- Neither did they offer to pour some pepper on the pasta (as is customary). We asked for some pepper and they brought a dirty pepper mill, which we dared not touch.
- Apart from initially serving each of our glasses with a minimal amount of wine, they subsequently did not bother with the wine at all. They just left the bottle by the side of the table (in a bucket), with a towel next to it.
- We asked for some napkins and they brought us three napkins folded in the special napkin container. Upon unfolding one of them, to our shock, we observer that it was oily and contained crumbs and sauce. Clearly, It was previously used, however it somehow ended up folded and given to us to use.More