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Ristorante Maffei, Piazza Erbe 38, Verona, Italy.

Ristorante Maffei, Piazza Erbe 38, Verona, Italy.

Piazza Erbe 38, Verona, Italy.

+39 045 8010015

I booked the Maffei some months in advance, as part of a trip to Verona to celebrate my wife’s birthday. The online booking system worked well and the web site gave a lot of information with regards to menus, wines and historic location.

The restaurant premises are quite spectacular, being housed in a magnificent palatial building. We were greeted by very friendly staff and shown to our table, as well as ourselves, there was only one other couple in the restaurant, despite this being 9pm on a Friday night. I confess that the alarm bells did start to ring.

We were given a complimentary glass of Prosecco whilst we deliberated and both plumped for the meat tasting menu. The starter, (which was supposed to be veal), was a simple chicken breast grilled, scored and asparagus laid in the cuts. Leaving aside the fact that it was not veal as described, the asparagus was badly prepared, with the stringy lower stems being served as well, causing my wife to nearly choke. At this point I had to make a decision, should I complain and leave, or ignore it? I must explain that sending things back does not happen in my world. Sending food back, to behind closed kitchen doors, calls for a degree of trust between yourself and the kitchen that I simply do not have. My over-active imagination would not allow me to eat anything that had been sent back, then returned “corrected”. We decided to stay and the second course, a veal cannelloni, duly arrived. This was much better, tasty, well seasoned braised veal in a rolled ‘cannelloni’ pancake, topped with a mild cheese sauce. The main course was braised ox cheek, which is one of my favourite cuts, when prepared correctly, which this was. Lovely rich sauce, tender, mildly gelatinous cheek meat, delicious. The whole thing was ruined by the accompanying vegetable, which was simply four blobs of cold, carrot ‘foam’, (which had little carrot flavour), and nothing else. I am aware of the Italian custom of not automatically providing vegetables with the ‘secondi’ but this would have been improved beyond measure by a couple of simple, steamed vegetables.

We expected the worst with the dessert and we got it. Some semi-cooked banana, liberally dredged in cinnamon and sugar, served cold with some chocolate mousse. Whilst not being inedible, it was third rate stuff.

The star of the show was the bottle of Quintarelli Valpolicella, at a very good price (IMHO) and the staff. Not only did they genuinely surprise us with a small birthday cake and a couple of sung verses but we also got treated to a nice glass of complimentary Sauternes with the dessert, as well as the complimentary Prosecco to start. The bill came to a reasonable €200, (I live in London and trust me, if this place were located there, it would cost twice the price with complimentary NOTHING). I really wanted to like the Maffei but in the end, the food was simply too shoddy to live up to the building and the staff. Whether the poor turn out of that evening (only three couples dining during our two hour stay) is down to the prices, or the chef is a question only the management can answer but IMHO, there are far better establishments dotted around Verona at a fraction of the price.


www.ristorantemaffei.it/english/index.php
By Uxbridgecouple at 26/03/2008 - 15:07 | 2008 | Italian | Italy | Rejected | Review | Views | ££££/$$$$ | add new comment | 182 reads