Mille Fiori - Catania

What a joke of a restaurant. When 5 people order a meal together, it is a basic expectation that you will eat your meal together, not here though. The last person received their dish, 35 minutes after the first person did. Whilst the food was presented prettily and was passable in terms of the taste, the dishes were not as described. A pistacchio di brute e prosciutto should have the ham in the meal instead of delivered separately after complaint.

So we chose this place because of TheFork 30% discount. First problems appeared when we wanted to know what spaghetti allo scoglio is, but the waiter was unable to explain, probably because she was not Italian and not spoke it well. Later we found out that this same appeals to English language, when lady sitting next to us ordered grilled chicken breast and received it in grated bread, and then after explaining the mistake to the waiter and being apologized, she received a horse meat. So we’ve ordered frittura mista of seafood as a started, then spaghetti with seafood (allo scoglio but we had to google was it actually is) and mixed grilled seafood. The main dishes came first, not simultaneously, and then when we were already in our main dishes, the waiter brought our appetizer. Spaghetti allo scoglio: pasta had no taste of the seafood, it was like a separated element in this meal, like the seafood was randomly added just before being served. Grilled seafood: the fish was fine, just one prawn and extremely rubber octopus. Frittata mista: so small parts of some animals that they were basically made just of batter, little tasteless fishes and rubber squid. What surprised me the most was the fact that they were brave enough to serve it with the worst and cheapest “sweet thai” sauce at side. I mean, what the hell? What does it have to do with Italian seafood? Looks more like KFC... As much as I can understand some organization mistakes that happen to restaurants at the beginning of their activity, this was not only about service but also (mostly) about food. I thought you can’t eat bad in Italy, but it looks like I was wrong. Maybe it’s because I’m not sure if this place is run by Italians, more like some eastern European people, this might explain putting rucola and balsamico everywhere, like it was in 2000’s in Eastern Europe. I strongly recommend not to dine there if you’re looking for authentic Italian seafood experience. I believe there are many places offering you quality food in Catania, so do a research and go!

Abbiamo pagato molto poco e mangiato bene! Il personale è gentile, ci ha accolto e soddisfatto le nostre richieste e abbiamo scambiato qualche parola. La posizione è strategica, a due minuti a piedi dal centro!

Siamo stati una sera con una coppia di amici. Abbiamo gustato pesce freschissimo ma anche la pizza è eccellente! Il personale è cortese e la cucina di qualità. Consigliatissimo! Ottimo rapporto qualità-prezzo.

This was the worst meal that we had during a full week of dining in Catania. Small portions, badly executed, lacking on flavour and expensive prices. The swordfish pasta was a bad school dinner, and we were charged 16€ for two lonely small calamari when the menu stated 12€. When we raised this to the waiter he said we had received a double portion which was laughable. I am enclosing the photos here. We paid 58€ however the meal wasn 't worth more than 30€. Shortly after seating down we realised that everyone there was a tourist. We felt so ripped off.