15/06/2025: In the square of Vada (very nice) full of clubs, tables all booked, evening at the barrel to taste excellent gin and tonics... accompanied by a very Tuscan tagliolini, told and explained by a very hipster bartender... beautiful evening, nice atmosphere
15/06/2025: I never write reviews but after yesterday I would like to say two things.
It had been about last summer since I had been back for dinner at this place and then I decided to come, driven by the fact that the 7-8 times I have been here in the space of two years I have always had a great time, and I want to underline this.
Excellent choice of wines, raw materials, friendly but professional service, meat, fish, vegetarian, vegan dishes etc., including a vegetarian platter, the “Orto Vadese”, the reason for my review, which is described in this way:
”vegetarian or vegan cutting board, summary of the most requested recipes on the menu with some extras”
The dish in question was composed, starting from the bottom right in the photo, of: a radish cut into 4, two strips of raw cucumber, a small bowl of olives, two pieces of fennel, a corn cob cut in half, ONE broccoli florets and ONE cauliflower, a cherry tomato in the bowl in the middle, a toothpick with 4 pieces of potato (I think they are good potatoes, a recipe from their menu) and a small vegetarian meatball.
So: there was almost nothing of the “most requested” recipes on the menu, except ONE vegetarian meatball and a toothpick with 4 pieces of potato. The rest was a side dish, even a poor one.
All this for the modest sum of €18, not that it is an exaggerated price in general, but it is since it is the most expensive dish on the menu.
I pointed this out to the waitress, a girl who is always very kind, and she called the manager, so I explained my doubts to him, that is, that paying that amount for a dish that is practically a more refined side dish seemed strange to me, and I didn't tell him this by chance, but strong in the fact that last June I had the same dish and it was FULL of stuff, all good, now I don't remember exactly what was in it but I left really satisfied. Maybe it cost a little more but I mean, I would have preferred to pay €21 and eat than €18 and ruminate.
The manager justified himself by talking about the "food cost" of the raw materials and the different preparation techniques, and of course, the quality of what they offer is the reason why I often came to dinner here.
Let's start with the food cost: certainly high because maybe taken from the small organic farmer etc etc. but if on the plate you put ONE broccoli florets, ONE cauliflower, two pieces of cucumber, a radish, a corn cob, a meatball and two potatoes, can you justify yourself by talking about the cost? How much can the actual cost of a similar dish be???
Preparation techniques: they produce the meatballs and potatoes "on scale" because they are very popular dishes so they don't have a specific time dedicated only to them for the preparation of the dish.
The cherry tomato is cut, as well as the cucumber and the radish, the olives are bought good and put in the bowl, a presumed specific cooking is required for the other vegetables, he told me for example: "the fennel is cooked separately" and where should it be cooked in the potato water??
Then there are a whole series of sauces here and there, however very good, that certainly require preparation but I don't think they are used only for one dish.
However, he did not give in to my complaint and rightly did his part by defending the local dish, but perhaps by reading these lines he will realize that I am not entirely wrong, otherwise I would not be here writing an essay.
I want to point out that he offered to change it for me, but I did not want to wait and I had also lost a bit of hunger, which came back later since in the end my dinner was made up of some fried vegetables and two vegetable meatballs from the appetizer (he has 4 but we split it), the potato stick and another meatball from the dish in question, but I probably would have left still a bit hungry even if I had finished the main course.
In conclusion: appetizers, fried vegetable basket, and vegetarian meatballs, main courses, Vadese vegetable garden and beef peposo, water and a wine for €26, total €70.
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