Enoteca

Lunchen var helt ok och prisvärt!

I met 7 friends at Enoteca for dinner. I was half an hour early, so I ordered a glass of wine. In fact, I ordered a nice wine — a Brunello. But It didn’t taste like a Brunello at all. It tasted old and flat, as if the bottle had been open for several days.
Please keep in mind that this is an Italian restaurant who supposedly «specializes in wine.» How strange, because the girl at the counter seemed to know very little about their wines. I asked to taste the Chianti. She rummaged through bottles on the counter (all open), then said they were out of Chianti. I asked for a comparable wine. She didn’t know. I asked to taste the Brunello (to make sure it wasn’t old). She said they don’t allow tastings. Very interesting, because on their website they claim that their «expert staff can always recommend matching wines with food, or to taste.»
My friends arrive. We had to ask for everything. Menus. Waters. A wine list. We waited almost an hour for our food. I ordered an asparagus risotto. The waiter put a bowl of shrimp pasta in front of me. I’m allergic to shrimp. Turns out that the chef misread our ticket and prepared the wrong dishes. The manager gave us an option: we could just accept the wrong dishes, or we could wait 5 minutes for the right dishes. 5 minutes to cook risotto? There’s no way a risotto can be made in 5 minutes.
So I took the pasta and ate around the shrimp. My friend decided to wait for the risotto she’d ordered. It came out 5 minutes later, just as the manager promised, but it was terrible. The rice was hard and chewy, half raw and not creamy. Not that my pasta was any better. The noodles were way too thick. They stuck together and tasted like salty flour. I couldn’t eat even half of it.
Only 1 person at the table was happy with their meal. 7 people were unhappy. We explained to the manager that we were disappointed. He seemed to get angry with us. Then he offered to compensate us with free coffee. Free coffee? That’s all he could offer after a terrible meal, mixing up orders, making us wait, and serving old wine?
He felt very bad, and by the time we paid our tab, he finally apologized. But still, I will not be returning to Enoteca.
The search for decent Italian food in Stockholm continues…
It’s starting to feel like an impossible quest.