Ristorante Giovanni
About
Seafood, Roman
Location
Adress: Via del Banco di Santo Spirito 58, Rome, 00186
Phone: +39 06 68808298
Reviews
-
Jeff S.
Not as bad as the other reviews suggest. Great pizza. Close to the Vatican. We had a great lunch here. I got the potato and sausage pizza, more than enough for 1 person. A little pricey, 36 euros for 2 pizzas and 2 drinks.
-
Allan G.
I don't know about what other people are saying but the food was absolutely delicious! Very clean place, good customer service. The food isn't pricey at all. Affordable.
place is full with customers leaving happy and pleased. -
Amy B.
We were overheated and famished after a tour of Vatican City and its many sites. We were also standing in the dead-on midday sun and could find little shade as respite. So we didn't have time to Yellp a nearby restaurant and ducked into this place. We were offered seats inside in a far back room that was blissfully cold. There was a large party seated beside us, all of whom ordered pizzas that looked delicious. With sodas, beer and cold still water ordered, we perused the menu.
Before I begin, I have to say that if you come to Italy you must understand that restaurants charge a service fee per head and will often charge for the bread service as well. This is not the US where servers earn well below the minimum wage and restaurants can afford to give freebies to lure you in the door and keep you coming back. Additional tipping above the service charge in Italy is not standard nor expected; but, when it's done is usually a few Euros in the form of allowing the restaurant to keep the change when paying in cash. Those giving low ratings to this restaurant because of the 'shady' fees and charges simply don't understand that running a business in a country that pays a slightly better wage for servers requires that patrons pay slightly more for their meals and for each item served to the table. Moreover, Italians don't tip 10-20% directly to the waiter as we do in the US. So in Italy you pay for the food and service without having to supplement the waitstaff's income...unless of course you roll in looking 100% American. Everyone knows Americans tip. Okay, now back to the review.
Our server and the food runners were pleasant. Our orders were taken and the food arrived roughly 15 minutes later. Romeo ordered chicken parm as it was the first time he'd seen it on a menu in Italy. We remarked that maybe it was an Italian American dish rather than a traditional Italian one. I ordered pasta e fagioli and was excited to see if it was similar to my grandmother's recipe. The kiddo ordered pizza margherita yet again.
I agree with another writer that the sauce on the pizza, chicken and even on the pasta e fagioli (good god, who does that?!?!) tasted like it was from a can. In fact, it tasted like the sauce drowning the tiny circle pasta in a can of Spaghettios. It had a bland condensed tomato soup and fake Parmesan cheese taste to it. One reminiscent of a childhood spent grocery shopping the econobuy aisle of the local Acme and begging for a real can of Spaghettios instead of the Econo-Os. Alas, 20 for $10 was too good of a sale to pass by and the name brand once again slipped through my tiny label hungry hands.
The kiddo said she liked her pizza. It had a thicker crust than the prior day's lunch pizza. So she wasn't going to use that for anything besides a handle. She ate half and then picked the mozzarella off the other half. Romeo ate his chicken parm. It was edible. Not awful but also not something he wanted to eat again. The same with my pasta e fagioli. My family hailed from Calabria. So perhaps they do it differently there. But seeing red sauce over thick noodles and kidney beans was a shock to my system. It was also not awful but not good. For Romeo and I, the meals served as nourishment to end the grumbling in our bellies and a chance to use the a/c to lower our core body temperatures. I briefly wondered if any of us would get sick afterward. Thankfully, we didn't. Instead we ventured off by foot to find a gelaterria near the Trevi fountain.
I advise you to pass by this place if you're not completely starving and have some juice left in your energy stores. Just a few blocks away, you'll find dozen of little restaurants from which to choose. But if you cannot go any longer, then rest assured that this place will serve you decent food at low prices in a refreshingly cold room and will be happy to serve you. -
NI K.
The water bottle was unsealed. A glass of red wine was charged 10 euro, they charged 10% service fee! Bad people!!
-
Jared T.
We decided to check this place out because it was full of people and prices looked reasonable for being so close to the Castle. We ordered a couple appetizers, some spaghetti pomadoro and a pizza. The food took a good 25 minutes to come out and the pasta was very cold. Also, the sauce tasted like cheap canned sauce with no seasoning. They used the same sauce on the pizza and the toppings were clearly thrown in a pile on a quarter of the pizza and not even spread out. The pizza crust was chewy and not good at all. When it came time to pay we saw that they charged us 4 euros from some food that we had no idea what it was (it wasn't the typical bread charge we had seen before). Since there is no tip included we just paid the extra 4 euros and left no additional tip. All in all it was terrible and not worth the 40 euros. Probably one of the worst meals we had in Italy.