Il Fumatore - BAGNOREGIO

Loved the food, great service. A hidden gem!

We had visited Civita di Bagnoregio with the intention of a) seeing if I could still make it up the hill b) having lunch in the town. We did however get there early and I did make it up the hill but it was too early to eat so we, like the grand old Duke of York went back down the hill and up again to Bagnoregio, We parked the car and this was the first restaurant we came to. It was excellent, local food perfectly cooked, wonderful service, first class house wine at €8 a litre. Nothing not to like. I would go again anytime. Not sure of the hours but a notice at the entrance seemed ti indicate lunch time only and closed Thursday.

It 's quite a rare feat to find a truly lousy restaurant in Italy, especially in a high-traffic, seasoned traveller destination like Bagnoregio, which is frequented mostly by locals, rather than tourists. But this restaurant may quite tick all the boxes of the one to avoid like the plague due to terrible service, mediocre food, and the holy grail of dining faux pas, a cooked insect in the pasta. Ready to be sufficiently warned? First, let me give them credit where it is due. We had lunch there on a particularly busy Sunday when all the other restaurants were outrageously booked. We showed up with no reservation and they were able to accommodate us with a table if we were willing to wait for 30 minutes, which we were. We 're a family of five, two adults, two kids, and a newborn, but we were in good company as it 's a pretty family friendly restaurant. And our kids are quite well behaved, so it 's not a case of lousy service deserved by a rowdy party with obnoxious kids. After being seated and furnished with water, it took them about forty minutes to take our order. Forty minutes during which both my wife and I went out to once again see if any of the adjacent restaurants had freed up. No such luck. Watching them operate was a case study in total failure of restaurant management. It was part frustrating, but part comedic. They were essentially three ladies, the front of house mama who is also the owner and chef, her daughter who is the main waitress, and a second hired waitress. We 'd see the main waitress walking our way with the notepad and a pen about to take our order, before she got distracted with a random sthought and then would walk away to act on that impulse. Then hover again toward us before remembering to fulfill a request of another diner placed about ten minutes prior. And the owner/chef/manager who 's supposed to be leading her team wastes infinite amounts of time doing menial jobs that her daughter or the other waitress could be doing to free her up to cook those damn dishes, settle bills and get people out of the door faster, etc. No one in that joint was taught to smile, but they totally excel in rolling their eyes and huffing and puffing. Boys and girls with fantasies to own your own restaurant, this is the place to go to to understand that running a restaurant is not for the faint of heart or anyone with even one amateur bone in them. While I could dedicate another five pages to the royally awful service, let me cut to the chase and get to the real measure of a good restaurant. The food. Because even if service is lackluster but the food is out of this world, I am willing to give a restaurant a break. No such break to be given here. The pasta dishes that came out as our firsts were nothing to write home about. Not being able to churn up the perfect pasta dish in this country is as shameful as a bad couscous in Morocco, a lousy pancake in America, or off sushi in Japan. Unforgivable. But what one of the pastas we ordered lacked in character it made up for in free protein. A large, cooked, and clearly well seasoned fly was there hidden in full glory within the tagliatelle strands. Later when I read other reviews of this place, I spotted another diner who reported the very same gift, in Italian. Check it out yourself in the three star reviews, its the one entitled “Cibo ottimo ma.. Now moving right along to our mains. We had requested three orders of sausages. It was only after we had our firsts that we were told they ran out of sausages and if we wanted something else. I opted for a lamb stew, my wife felt sufficiently full after her near-brush with a fly, and we ordered grilled chicken for the kids to share. We should have known better as the chicken was not on the menu but suggested on the fly by the waitress. There 's no sugar coating this, but the chicken was pretty much rotten. Worse, it was premeditated. Whoever cooked it had tried hard to mask the crime by over seasoning and over cooking. Strike 2. Next came my lamb stew, and this was the piece di resistance. Strike 3. Eighty five percent bone, ten percent rubbery fat, and about five percent eidble meat. Regardless of the underlying scam of serving such a dish, the sauce tasted exceptionally uninspired, so even that couldn 't rescue it from total culinary damnation. Now this has nothing to do with the restaurant, but it just made the experience a little bit more excruciating. Out of the blue, one of the people sitting behind us just stood up, and with not an ounce of shame started rubbing his back side, exposing his the crack of his you know what. This went on for about five minutes. Evidence of that attached. So, I take this opportunity to plead to every would-be diner. I beg of thee, if you must rub your back side, please do it with a modicum of discretion. Let alone to take it to the restroom, a space designed precisely for this sort of thing. At that point we knew we were had and our best course of action was to leave and hope to find reservations for dinner at some of the other places we had eaten at the night before with much better results. At the till, the owner/chef/front of house/chief grumpy lady apologized for the rotten chicken and the fly, but conveniently ignored my complaint about the lamb. The transaction was civil but I couldn 't wait to get out. We went for a walk and had some roasted chestnuts on the way and coffee that held us up for dinner. I 'd tell you where we had dinner, which was amazing, but then it would undermine the credibility of this well-deserved negative review.

In this small restaurant in the middle of the old town of Bagnoregio, we had a delightful experience. we could taste the traditional local food in the atmosphere of a fresh and calm summer evening. we started with an antipasto with cheese, bruschette and local salami: an enjoyable experience perfectly accompaoned by a red house wine (merlot). we took two different type of pasta: spaghetti alla chitarra with nuts pesto and crispy bacon, and pappardelle with white minced meat and grated citrus fruit. really fantastic! a perfect mixture of tradition and originality. we also shared an hamburger with potates and chicory, all of excellent quality. the price is very accessible (50 euro) but the portions are proportional to it. we truly recommend this restaurant!

Do not think of smoking but prepare the palate for refined and delicious treats and grace in advising the customer in choosing. really a friendly place and the normal pocket. Thank you.