23/08/2024: Basics:
- wife's birthday, with two children, ages 12 and 8.
- arrived 19:45 and sat in the back corner. - Classic menu for adults, children from a la carte children's menu.
- last night of 8 nights in Madonna di Campiglio.
Several elements of the experience that we felt fell short of our expectations:
(i) the quantity and quality of the food fell short of what we would consider should be expected at a Michelin-starred restaurant:
(a) the "degustation of bread" was not a very high quality start to the meal - it felt gimmicky and (for the restaurant) a low-cost way to make patrons feel satiated, given the quality and portion size of the rest of the menu. The breadsticks were stale and crunchy (plus the acoustics of the intimate stube-style restaurant resulted in us hearing every other customer crunch on the breadsticks/crostini)
(b) the salad was underwhelming and fairly small and not particularly unique; (c) the soup with tortellini was unremarkable; (d) the pasta, while tasty, was not out of the ordinary for the region; and (e) the venison was a bit disappointing both in flavor and in size. Overall, it was not of a quality one would expect from a Michelin-starred restaurant set menu.
(ii) the service was delivered by nice people with a very good level of English, but it fell short of what we would expect. (a) We had to ask several times to have wine to accompany courses, while our glasses sat empty for a long time on the table - in two instances, my wife had to ask what wine could accompany the meal she was already sitting in front of, having to wait until the wine arrived later to start eating (for the main, the head waiter left her sitting waiting for at least 5 minutes); (b) our water bottle and glasses sat empty for a very long time, and we had to remind them to bring another twice.
(iii) Though they were clearly short-staffed, the staff did not seem to recognize their having fallen short of delivery: when we called them over for the above reminders, the impression we got is they were annoyed with our intrusion, rather than apologetic for their having forgotten or for having fallen short. We felt we were very kind and patient with the staff - we always are, but also because we both started our careers in the food services industry (my wife as a chef at 2 and 3 michelin star restaurants), so our starting point is always sympathetic.
Minor points:
(iv) upon arrival, when asking guests to wait for their table for an extended period in the lounge, a nice touch would be to offer a small coupe of prosecco
(v) it appeared staff attended to other tables with more attention, but we did notice that other tables had empty glasses throughout the evening.
There were of course some good parts of the evening, from the generally nice senior staff (e.g. at entry and exit), the presentation of the meals, and the extensive wine list. It was also nice that you had a kids menu, a la carte, allowing for parents to dine on a set menu with the children eating from a different one. The children enjoyed their meals, although we would point out that the Milanese Vitello con palate was overcooked - both the meat and the potatoes. My son was so hungry, he ended up going ahead and eating (without out sending it back), but it definitely could have been better. The meatballs for our daughter were undercooked initially, a situation that was rectified - with an apology (i.e. we appreciated the chef admitted there was a mistake, rectified the issue, and apologized -- and following that our daughter really enjoyed the meatballs).
The evening fell well short of our expectations, and we spent far too much money given the experience fell short of Michelin.
After the meal, I went on google to look at reviews and came across one on google reviews from someone called "Chris Kopczynski" from > one year ago. I think that accurately portrays the evening we had as well, which makes me regret I did not do my research ahead of time.
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