Tel: 0744-50 11 97
Program: 11:00 - 01:00
The Del Ponte terrace was extremely pleasant, with a few old trees and arranged in such a way that is also quiet although it is close to the road.
The girl that served us had an impeccable performance: she smiled, knew the menu, and was quick in all her actions, with common-sense?almost too good to be true!
Del Ponte Pizza Restaurant
Close to Miorita fountain , on the right as you go out of Bucharest, a red banner kept scratching my eyes for some time now. For a while I thought that it?s about another Italian that thinks he is going to win the market "at Romania" with his good-for-nothing pizza. I am very cautious when it comes to Italian restaurants, most of them are swindles, (and not cheap ones, I tell you) that knavishly exploit the Romanian?s stupidity for whom any pasta means spaghetti, and the pizza can have a 2-cm thick dough. The thicker, the better would say the Romanian woman eager for debaucheries (and not culinary ones), but the thing with the pizza is a bit different. Different by one letter, it?s true, but still significantly different! The debut at Del Ponte was a bit annoying. A small waiter had two short cliches:
a) Good evening!
b) Do you have a reservation?
These reservation issues always test my patience. If I do have reservation, I will tell him, if I don?t, the question seems to be a straightforward and inelegant way of packing me off. This is also a consequence of the memories from the great pub ?La Mama? in Barbu Vacarescu, where at the beginning I wanted to go in and have lunch, and right from the doorway a waiter with a look of a-one-class-higher-than-the-train ?butler gave me a short one like on the highway: if you don?t have a reservation you are not allowed! I couldn?t believe that in that kind of a tavern one might need a reservation. Well, there is also the caddish habit of some restaurants to reserve some tables just for the love of it, so that they look more important; in other words, they have reservations, although they would kiss the feet of a customer that would walk in their restaurant. Figuratively speaking, as their catering is still poor. This happens, for example, at the snobbish Balthazar, full of airs and graces next to Gradina Icoanei.
Coming back to Del Ponte: I replied in a, probably, slightly irritated tone that if I must have a reservation, I can leave and come back some other time. Suddenly, the waiter’s tone changed, he said he needs to ask the head of the restaurant if there is something they can do and he disappeared for a couple of minutes, coming back with a tall guy, dressed in white, with the guise of a mafia man. I was already becoming convinced that they had indeed all the tables reserved. Extraordinary for Bucharest, the head of the restaurant , the mafia man, after a warm hello found us a table in 5 minutes, apologizing for keeping us waiting. I was starting to like it here, at Del Ponte!
The Del Ponte terrace was extremely pleasant, with a few old trees and arranged in such a way that is also quiet although it is close to the road.
The girl that served us had an impeccable performance: she smiled, knew the menu, and was quick in all her actions, with common-sense almost too good to be true!
The food was very good: muslitos and hot tomato sauce and zander file with meuniere sauce. Exquisitely prepared! We also took a pizza to go, and it is probably the best in Bucharest, probably even beats the one at Quadri, that has been the first in our top so far.
