Victoria R.
Yelp
All'Arco is a unique establishment; I've never seen anything quite like it. Despite the fact that it's a VERY small place, with a kitchen tinier than the one I used to have in my California condo, the staff still manages to produce numerous varieties of market fresh delicacies at breakneck speeds!
Given its size, the place tends to get very crowded at times. That said, it's better to be lucky than good - when my friend and I arrived, we walked into the tiny bar and there were only four other people (all locals) there; two minutes later another dozen showed up ;-) All of us were pressed up against the tiny bar, struggling to preserve our respective individual spaces - I expect that the whole affair looked like an elaborate, old-fashioned dance...
Tip: The food here won't rock your World, but it's original, local, tasty, and the overall experience of participating in the "dance" here shouldn't be missed!
We ordered five different cicchetti, which included the traditional butterflied sardine (lightly battered and fried), marinated anchovy on bread and salted oiled anchovy on a light cream cheese on bread - the cheese cut through the anchovy saltiness. We also saw that some delcious looking fresh sandwiches were already made - there were square, deliciate, tiny white bread sandwiches, as well as a number of other dishes.
To pair with our food, we enjoyed two glasses of house wine and an aperol spritz - the total bill came tgo just under 14 euros. The service was friendly and helpful, and by some miracle, we even managed to find a space to lean on the building across the street while we ate :-)