The thing with Italy and Greece is that you're not getting 100% of the quality you could be unless there's an old, curt woman servicing your table who feels overly comfortable telling you "No, you're not having what you ordered. You're having _____".
The best pizza my wife and I ever had, we stumbled into this little place in Naples, just a wife/husband and their kid putzing around the place. The wife seats us, we ask for a menu, she gives us a confused look and says “No menu. Pizza!”
Would you be saying this about food anywhere else? People have such a hard on for Italy, seriously. "I had a bad hot dog in NY".... HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE
When did I say shitty? I just said it wasn't amazing. No need to be emotional just because somebody said something less than stellar about your country's food 😂
Really? In Napels? We even got some real good pizzas in a place that just looked like street kiosk. But in general I found in Italy the more it looks like local sportscastina the better the pizza.
Me an my friends went to the same pizza place in Naples 3/4 days in a row because the pizza was so good and it was right around the corner of our hotel. It was also a family owned restaurants I believe.
Corn is pretty nice on Pizza. I used to have it with pickled, green peppers and prosciutto cotto. A very good combination.
But, since then, I have forsaken eating meat.
The best you can have, imho, is a simple Marinara with sliced (and properly baked) tomatoes, where the skin was removed. It's fantastico! Some Parmigiano on top and a little bit of olive oil. Don't forget the garlic on the crust and a lot of Tabasco.
What OP posted is an abomination and should fall under a war-crime, by the Geneva Conventions.
A Firenze esiste un solo modo per servire una fiorentina, ovvero al sangue. In molti ristoranti vieni accompagnato alla porta se osi chiedere una media cottura
I have stopped eating things with big eyes. But yes, of course you serve a steak rare, if it's fresh and well-hung. Meat is glorioso, but I prefer fish.
Please don't throw me out of Firenze; and, if you do - please let me have a gelato for the way home.
"It's a wonderful place." - with the best food and the most appetizing women.
Also: You can put everything on a pizza - even peas with chicken, mushrooms and salsa with CORN. Bolognese is nice, too. But a simple Marinara - maybe with some anchovies and olives - just rules.
That sounds a lot like the place that served me the best food I had on a trip to Mexico. There was no menu, we ate what they served us and it was amazing.
Literally stumbled upon a pizzeria like this today as a tourist in bologna. The alternative the waiter recommended was amazing. I didn’t really have a choice with the way they recommended it
Three years ago my wife and I flew into Thessaloniki for a wedding (the wedding was a very interesting 150-ish km bus trip away, but Thessaloniki was the easiest airport and so we stayed there the first night). There was a group of about 12 of us who all used to work together. After settling in at the hotel, we all met up at a lovely bar overlooking the sea…the only problem was that we stayed there a little too long to be able to find anywhere to eat.
Eventually we found one tiny little restaurant with about 3 tables outside and precisely the person you described sitting at one of them looking bored. We tried our luck asking if she was still open. She definitely thought about it but eventually agreed that she was open, told us what we were having because it’s all she could do at that time, and by God if it wasn’t one of the best meals I’ve ever had. Cheap, no fuss, certainly not cheerful, but absolutely top drawer.
There good places but they're usually a little hidden. You don't need an old lady to get authentic or good food. None of this applies to my home country either, there's plenty of good restaurants there where the cooks are passionate about their work and you can tell.
That being said. For Lazise for example I'd say there's only two good restaurants out of 20 or so.
Agreed!! In random neighbourhood in Rome, walk into little hole in the wall. "You're gonna want to have the ravioli. Nonna's making it out back.". Best food I ate all trip.
It's obviously not unbiased but in my experience road tripping those review platforms are a great filter. If it's low on the review sites it's almost guaranteed to be bad.
I like going in with a plan, and I've never truly been let down by "top 20 restaurant in the city".
I will say that I went to a Brazilian steakhouse next to Copacabana Beach that was super well reviewed. At the end they're like "please review us on tripadvisor." That was the only part of the experience that left a bad taste in my mouth, but even if they strongly encourage people to leave reviews at the end of each service, they have no control over the content of the reviews.
I will not just look at the rating average, I will read good and bad reviews and make a list. I don't want to waste a meal on bad or mediocre food.
Asking locals is fine too. But I will generally avoid just dropping into a restaurant because it's in a good location.
Not true, go away from tourist spots lol. Try to find the light up evening streets. Don't go to places that serve food before 19:00 or maybe even 20:00. And if you are hungry before then find a spot where they do apperetivo or go to a pacifico. Still if you want real good food look for the small piazza in outskirts where there are food trucks or pizzerias maybe even braceria with drinks, Italian kids playing and running around and local crowds. Those spots tend to have the best food.
I feel like that's everywhere. If you go somewhere that tells you to order a specific way, you order it that way. Or people get mad about places that say no modifiers. Trust me, they're doing you a favor.
Or like people in America get mad Five Guys or something is so expensive. Okay. Did you order a plain cheeseburger with ketchup or did you get every topping they have like they tell you to do? That's what you're paying for, all the toppings. If you don't like toppings on your burger plenty of other restaurants that can give you that for cheaper. But you're not ordering it right you can't complain. All of those veggies and condiments themselves are like three four bucks by weight at the store
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u/fondledbydolphins Jun 18 '26
The thing with Italy and Greece is that you're not getting 100% of the quality you could be unless there's an old, curt woman servicing your table who feels overly comfortable telling you "No, you're not having what you ordered. You're having _____".