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Spagna: Life

Via della Vite, 29 , Phone: 66938048
www.ristorantelife.it

Reviewed by: I.A. Rose from Israel, review #3785

When: 2011

An over-hyped restaurant serving blandly awful food in inverse proportion to the fanfare surrounding it.

Awful. Contrary to its boast the food in Life is insipid, tasteless and badly cooked. Made with obviously less then fresh ingredients, it is completely unpalatable and served with no thought to presentation, but simply plonked down on your plate in a most unappetizing way - which might be forgivable were it in anyway pleasing or authentically simple, enjoyable and tasty trattoria fare, but not in a restaurant which claims to offer high standard, flavoursome food made with flare. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. Quite the opposite. Lamentably 5th rate, the food was totally inedible (one of only a handful of occasions that I have had over-cooked pasta in Italy). Literally so, to the point where none of us three, even the less fussy, managed to finish a single dish, succeeding to down, at best, only a mouthful or two, at worst, just a little bit more, and this more out of incredulity that something could be so blandly disagreeable than anything else. And the white wine was not cold enough – not that I am, I may add, a fan of ice cold white wine that kills the taste. To its credit the restaurant didn't charge (prices range from 35 to 60 euros per head) for the one almost full plate, while the portions are admittedly generous, which was not only ironic but meant that we couldn't even indulge in the Woody Allen joke: “The food here is terrible and the portions so small too...”

I rarely write a bad review, not because I haven't been to any bad restaurants, but because I simply can't be bothered and am “content” to chalk up any disappointment to experience. But in this case I will make an exception if only to balance the inexplicable accolades surrounding this highly fashionable, popular restaurant in various websites, which, I can only think that it is the result of a well-honed, concentrated public relations onslaught.

This review is the opinion of a Slow Travel member and not of slowtrav.com.

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Spagna: Life

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