L’Isola della Pizza

Terrible service, mislead and taken advantage of…
Our tour guide recommended this restaurant and actually walked us to the entrance. After introducing us to one of the staff (where we were apparently marked as suckers) we were promptly seated (which was the only thing prompt about this experience). Our waiter greeted us fairly quickly and asked if we would like to start with an appetizer plate of vegetables and cheese. We responded yes and he disappeared. From this point on we continually attempted to ask for menus and drinks largely falling on deaf or intentionally neglectful ears. After about twenty minutes the first appetizer plates arrived, and then kept coming… and coming. After asking numerous times for menus, my son finally walked to the host station and grabbed them himself. Meanwhile, appetizer plates continued to arrive. We grabbed the waiter by the scruff of his neck (figuratively) and finally placed an order. After a long and painful lunch, the bill finally arrived with an 87.50 Euro charge for the appetizer alone. Also included in the 175.95 Euro lunch bill (Family of 5) was an automatic 15% gratuity & 2.00 Euro/​person bread charge.
We have spent the last two weeks traveling throughout Italy eating out nearly every meal. This was the only bad experience we had and it was awful.

Went there today, and the service was terrible. Was recommended by BnB owners. We had to call for a staff over and over — who seemed not to hear us when we call. When we ask for things they look everywhere but at us; so of course did NOT hear our request. But oh when the locals arrive BIG FANFARE, pulling out tables and doing their request. Ordered lamb skewers with potatoes; got the skewers had to try and catch them again to point out that we didn’t get the potatoes for our meal. We said we weren’t going to tip but tip was already in the bill.
Should have read the Unilocal review from the previous reviewers but then glad I didn’t so I am able now to share the same experience that other reviewer left.

Chose this place because of Unilocal and the fact that there were a lot of people in there on a Monday night. That should tell you something. We were very pleasantly surprised by the great service by Massimo and the quality of food. The pork chop came on a hot plate still cooking and the grilled lamb was good too.
We would definitely come back here to eat.
Ciaooo!

My wife and two daughters came here last year and recommended this pizza place for ravioli and lamb skewers. I brought my dad this place for lunch while doing a Vatican tour for his 80^th birthday today. Then I felt something weird. I told the waiter that I wanted to sit outside and he said the table was reserved. We sat inside and another waiter came and he asked us if we wanted to sit inside or outside. I said outside. Then we encountered the first waiter and he said the same thing, it was reserved. Then they talked to each other for a second and the first waiter said to me, ‘it was reserved for YOU!’
The fishness of the server didn’t end there. I ordered my food and my dad’s…a ravioli and lamb skewers, which was recommended by my wife who visited here last year. When I ordered, I said lamb skewers several times, and he kept saying ‘lamb’ got it. And I thought he got it, but I was wrong.
He brought something looked like lamb strips. I had no idea what it was but it was definitely more expensive than lamb skewers when I got the bill.
Another surprise on the bill was a 15% mandatory service charge. When I asked about that, the waiter pointed out a small marking at the bottom corner of a dessert section says ‘service charge’. Nowhere in the 15 page menu said it but only one which is in a ‘dessert and coffee’ section which I didn’t even look!
I demanded to talk to the manager and a female manager/​owner came out and she treated me like dirt. Basically the whole crew came out and verbally attacked me and said never to come back. One guy gave me their business card and told me to remember not to come back. As I was trying politely to bring up some unpleasant experience, which definitely did NOT deserve a service charge, I was so surprised to see how the female owner/​manager was treating her regular customers differently while basically telling me to go f**k myself just because I was not a local Italian customer.
Total sum of money I paid was 39.68 euros just for two and I paid over 7 euros for nothing, 2 for the wrong food and 5.18 for the service charge. I didn’t really expect to get any money back, but a little apology would have been nice. But all I got was plenty of nasty insults and laugh on my back.
Today was my last day in Rome and I have a very bad taste in my mouth. I’m pretty certain that I would never come back here any more.

Wir waren auf der Suche nach einem gemütlichen, guten & typisch italienischen Restaurant in Hotelnähe, welche erfahrungsgemäß in Stadtzentren nicht so leicht zu finden sind. Das Restaurant fiel uns dadurch auf, dass es voller Einheimischen war. Das ist aus meiner Sicht die beste Bewertung für ein Lokal!
Wir haben 2 x hausgemachte Pasta mit Steinpilzen & eine Pizza mit Proscuitto-​Schinken bestellt. Wir bestellten zudem eine Flasche Rotwein, welchen wir bereits kannten. In einem Restaurant in Deutschland kostet der Wein ca. 45 €. Hier zahlten wir nur 15 € für die Flasche.
Pasta & Pizza schmeckten unglaublich lecker! Wir haben es wirklich genossen!
Die Bedienung war sehr freundlich, aber etwas schlampig, was aber für (wahre) Italiener nicht untypisch ist. Sie legen Wert auf gute Qualität der Speisen und nicht auf hygienische Sauberkeit & 100% Ordnung. Uns hat es aber überhaupt nicht gestört, weil die Atmosphäre sehr angenehm und behaglich war.
Wir haben den Abend genossen & können das Restaurant mit gutem Gewissen weiterempfehlen.

Located between the Ottaviano Metro Stop and the Vatican Museum, we made a stop for some pizza and the «blood of Christ» before our exploration of the Vatican.
Shaded patio area right in front, so great for people watching.
Friendly, enthusiastic waiters.
Ordered a bottle of the wine of the day, Syrah, and it was reasonably priced.
Couple pizzas. They were average. Crust wasn’t crispy enough.
Place got hopping at about 12:30pm with locals & tourists.

This place is great if you want to sit for over an hour, waiting for your cold, mediocre food to come out, and another 20 minutes for your check, which your waiter keeps saying will come out in 2 minutes.

Another bad restaurant close to the vatican. Was told by locals it was good. But little to no service. Burnt food. And had to wait 5 min for my girl friends food to come after i had mine.

Service was absolutely terrible and the food was the definition of MEH! My inner foodie was devastated at how awful my fettuccini alla Bolognese. The worst part is they automatically charged service so I couldn’t show my displeasure by not leaving a tip. Honestly… This place is completely pass-​able. Don’t waste the space in your stomach.

We celebrated our anniversary here. When the waiter learned this he brought us champagne, dessert and limoncello. As it was later and we were tired we just told him one wanted pasta and the other steak, to surprise us. What came was amazing: cut filet on a sizzling grill covered with cherry tomatoes and arugula with potatoes. We ate here twice as our hotel was very close.

ATTENTION /​WARNING :
Faites attention à votre addition, le restaurant voulait nous facturer 6 € de pain alors que c’est 1 € !!!
Pay attention to the bill as they tried to charge us 6 € for bread, but it is written 1 € on the menu.
Le restaurant est bien situé mais la terrasse est à proximité des poubelles. La cuisine est goûteuse mais les prix sont excessivement élèves alors que les portions né sont pas copieuses (nous sommes ressorti du restaurant avec un goût de trop peu). Nous avons été servis avec un énorme décalage entre les plats, j’ai été servi alors que les autres personnes a ma table avaient fini de manger depuis 10 minutes. Plutôt décevant pour un restaurant de cette fourchette de prix, surtout vu les avis Unilocal actuels !

Be careful! This restaurant charges kinds of extra fees and the food is way far from delicious.

Food was fine but nothing special. Service pretty slow but not awful. Took us 15 minutes to get a dessert menu. Relatively cheap.

Vu la situation, a 250m de l’entrée des musées du Vatican, on pourrait croire a un restaurant a touristes de plus. Décoration originale, vespa au plafond, ce restaurant assez ample propose une cuisine de bonne qualité. Excellentes pizzas cuites au feu de bois et grillades de viandes a tomber. Une très bonne adresse dans ce quartier.

With the abundance of empty tables around lunchtime on Friday afternoon, I was a little skeptical of this place. However, the few locals having lunch, the wall-​to-​wall photos of Italian celebs, and a souz chef dedicated to peeling and baking potatoes did put my mind at ease. We had just come from an exhausting trek to the Vatican and were dying for (sparkling) water and food. The hubs ordered the buffalo mozzarella pizza and I ordered the pasta with wild boar sauce. The hubs’ pizza came out first and I had some of his (the waiter several times looked at us shocked that I was eating his pizza, but fyi– it’s rude in Italy to share pizzas… pizzas are not meant to be shared! We didn’t know to be fair). The pizza was one of the best we had in Rome, truly. The buffalo mozzarella was just perfect. So my pasta came and it was a bit on the tart/​tangy side (that’s how wild boar tastes evidently), but tasty. We even had room for a espresso macchiato and panna cotta con caramel (and oh my gosh, this panna cotta was by far truly outstanding. Think caramel flan but Italian style!). I would def recommend coming here, I would however, order the sizzling steak because I think its their specialty and a number of tables around us were served this very dish.

We were starving after visiting the Vatican at night, and found this place packed with locals and tourists alike. My lady friend peeked into the kitchen from one of the side windows and it looked clean and all the pastas were being made fresh, so we decided to try our luck and eat there.
And that’s when the clock started. What clock, you ask? The clock that records the amount of time and patience that I had to waste at this establishment and will never get back. Seriously, I’ll be on my deathbed and regret the 2.5 hours of mind numbing waiting in which I could have somehow bettered my life or those of the people around me.
We walked in, and the waiter told us to wait a moment and he would get us a table.
WAIT 5 minutes
He sat us down.
WAIT 10 minutes
We were asked if we want something to drink, and ordered.
WAIT 20 minutes
The server came by and we asked a couple questions about dishes. Before we could order he walked away.
WAIT 10 minutes
We finally ordered
WAIT 35 minutes
The food came, and we asked for silverware.
WAIT 10 minutes
Yay for silverware! We finally put food in our faces after 1.5 hours of waiting. I made the most of it and savored the hell out of every bite (i.e., I ate slowly).
WAIT 10 minutes
We flag the waiter down for dessert. He gets the tray and shows us what they have, then walks off.
WAIT 20 minutes
We say screw it to the dessert and flag someone else down for the check.
WAIT 10 minutes
We get the check, and I immediately pull my card out, but the server leaves.
WAIT 10 minutes
I get so annoyed that I just walk up to the cashier and and him our check and credit card. Finally, sweet release from the insanity.
On an unrelated note, the food was nothing special, but who cares when a meaningful fraction of your life is wasted waiting on poor service. I’m not measuring service from an American mindset, I know there’s an expectation of spending more time at a meal and they don’t come by unless you want them to … but this was crazy for Italian standards.

Life as tourists in Rome…
We were recommended this restaurant by a friend. Quaint feel due to tables being shoved together, wonderful decorations of old motorcycles.
Very friendly waiter who arrived promptly as we were seated for our lunchtime dining adventure. :)
We ordered the baked scamorza with the «prosciutto di Parma» …for our appetizer, yet arrived 1 minute before our pizzas. This decadent dish was outstanding, scalding hot, melted scamorza cheese. Was eaten with forks, I wish they would have served with crostini or at least bread.
I allowed my pizza to cool to room temp as we devoured this decadent creation. (Highly recommended). Just order well before other meal items arrive.
We ordered the house wine as well, not too shabby. Went well with our pizzas.
Mixed genre of customers, some local as well as tourists. Seeing that this restaurant is about 3 blocks from the Vatican.
Overall, great experience that didn’t break our budget… maybe broke our diet but that’s ok, well worth it.

Starters were good, pastas were hit and miss. But for the inexpensive price you should give it a try, won’t be disappointed.

Finding a decent restaurant near the Vatican (aka Tourist Central) is difficult, so my disappointment in L’Isola shouldn’t be surprising. The calzone was the best item we had, but overall we were underwhelmed with the pasta. Even the prosciutto with melon was mediocre, avoid.

Très bon resto je recommande vivement, les plats sont variés et faits maison, la pizza calzone est délicieuse. Le vin en pichet est acceptable (le vin blanc pétillant) et pour le dessert je recommande le tiramisu qui est excellent.
Attention né venez pas trop tard car le resto est vite complet

Just steps away from our B&B (and about 3 blocks from the Vatican museum) we decided to make the «pizza island» our first dinner stop in Rome.
The place looks incredible from the inside (there are 2 rows of outdoor seating as well), with a lot of fun decorations, a really nice atmosphere.
Tables are pretty close together, so get used to waiters brushing by you and eavesdropping on your «neighbor’s conversations (if you’re the nosy type). The audience is a nice mix of Italians and Internationals, so you should feel comfortable.
We started off ordering the veggie antipasti (EUR 8) which came promptly together with our 2 small beers. And «small» is no joke — 0.2l per glas is probably not the size to quench your thirst… ;-) The antipasti had beans, 1 large slice of grilled eggplant, 5 peppers (one of them hot, the others not), 2 slices of marinated fennel and avocado slices marinated in lemon juice (the clear winner of this plate). Don’t expect a lot of food from this starter item — we shared it amongst us both — I would say «starter» fits perfectly if you want to describe the amount of food (and not in a complimenting way).
Almost immediately after we were done with the starter plate, our «pizze» came out. We had the Diavola and a pizza with buffalo cheese and Parma ham. The «pizze» we’re fantastic and are distinctly different from Napoli style pizza (or any other type we have ever eaten, both in Italy and in Germany). The dough is very cross and only a little bit soft at the crust — very nice (but maybe a little bit hard to cut with the knives that are provided given it’s change from cross to soft from the center to the crust). Our pizzas were very tasty and had a good size (1 pizza per person is definitely a good call).
After we were done we followed the whole thing up with a shared portion of tiramisu (very yellow «cream» and a rather small portion, but very tasty). A bowl of grapes came on the house before we paid (with credit card). There is a 15% service charge and the bread that gets put on every table sets you back EUR 4, but there is no extra charge for table cloth etc (something that’s not unusual to appear on your bill elsewhere in Italy).
You should check out this place for its atmosphere, good service (our waiter spoke very good English and cracked a few jokes during our courses) and good food.

Came in at 7 something at night. Place was packed. Sat down by their bread station. Super busy and tight spaces. Tables are barely separated from each other. 2.5 for coke, 2.5 for water, they charge you 2 euros for bread that looks kinda old and is hard. 8 euros for the boscaiola pizza with mushroom, cheese, and sausage. 8 euros for fettuccine alla bolognese with meat sauce. Pasta was tasty. Not bad for serving size. If you order more than one dish at a time, we suggested asking for them to come out at the same time or you’ll be waiting a while. We waited a good while for the pizza after the pasta. Enough to digested and be hungry still. The gal at the table next to us was waiting a while to get a dessert and her tab. The pizza came out. Was okay tasting. For the Americans out there use to the tomato sauce, don’t expect it. First time having Italian pizza. Very thin and hard. The crust tastes like a cracker. Took a while for the tab as well. Service wasn’t so good. 4.65 for service charge. .15 additional. It’s an okay place to eat if you aren’t in a hurry and don’t mind waiting. Took about 3 hours for our whole time spent there.
Came in at 7 something at night. Place was packed. Sat down by their bread station. Super busy and tight spaces. Tables are barely separated from each other. 2.5 for coke, 2.5 for water, they charge you 2 euros for bread that looks kinda old and is hard. 8 euros for the boscaiola pizza with mushroom, cheese, and sausage. 8 euros for fettuccine alla bolognese with meat sauce. Pasta was tasty. Not bad for serving size. If you order more than one dish at a time, we suggested asking for them to come out at the same time or you’ll be waiting a while. We waited a good while for the pizza after the pasta. Enough to digested and be hungry still. The gal at the table next to us was waiting a while to get a dessert and her tab. The pizza came out. Was okay tasting. For the Americans out there use to the tomato sauce, don’t expect it. First time having Italian pizza. Very thin and hard. The crust tastes like a cracker. Took a while for the tab as well. Service wasn’t so good. 4.65 for service charge. .15 additional. It’s an okay place to eat if you aren’t in a hurry and don’t mind waiting. Took about 3 hours for our whole time spent there.

3.5 stars
I can imagine what locals go through while navigating the circus outside the Vatican. It’s like a physically daunting sport: dodging lost looking tourists, weaving through your groups and the annoying people who try to sell you things you don’t need.
Seek refuge at L’isola, about 3 blocks away from the Musei Vaticani. The waiters speak excellent English but fear not! I spotted lots of locals who stopped by for lunch al fresco too.
We loved the real Roman style pizza with thin crispy-​chewy crust. Their pizza Napoli con capperi is filled with delicious capers and anchovies balanced with a sweet (gentle acidity) of tomato sauce and melty mozzarella di Buffala from Campania. The pappardelle alla cinghiale (wild boar) was perfectly al dente, but the meat needs some more time to soften up.
Friendly service from our waiter, but we needed to remind him about our wine. He topped off our half-​carafe and charged us minimally for the cost. Grazie mille!

Service good. Italians eating there. Calzone eggs cheese. Lasagna. Close to Ottaviano metro station. Close to Vatican museum.

Meine leckerste Margherita gab es hier. Der Brunello war aber sehr sehr teuer. Deswegen 1 Stern weniger. Ansonsten: nicht wie hin Leute!