Marie D.
Yelp
Let me preface this by saying that we're in Bellagio in late July, that there's a worker shortage, and that Italy is having unprecedented numbers of tourists right now. In fact, my party of six discussed this at length last night over dinner at La Fontana. The discussion arose because we were taken aback by the rudeness of the host (and I believe, based on a conversation I heard him having at another table, the owner) and waitstaff.
For example, when we first arrived I went inside to see if there was a waitlist. The owner yelled at me, "There is a line! Get in the line!" I responded, "I just wanted to see if there is a list," and he barked back, "There is no list! Get in line!" I should've left.
When our food arrived (two orders of ravioli, a prosciutto and mushroom pizza, lasagna, fried seafood platter, meat and cheese board, roasted vegetables, a mixed salad, and chicken in a white wine sauce with ratatouille), we dug in. The results were mixed. About half of us liked our food but none of us thought it was exceptional. The worst meal by far was the chicken. The sauce was clumpy and the ratatouille was absolute mush. My 18-year-old son was hungry, though, so he scraped off the sauce and ate most of the chicken before giving up. It was by far the worst meal we've ever had in Italy (I've lived in Florence, we've been here on vacation or for work a dozen times).
We didn't say anything. We knew the restaurant was working under difficult conditions. I heard the owner tell the table next to us that their day off is Thursday, so they'd been working hard for six days, and that they were especially busy because the restaurant next to them was closed. I heard a waitress snap at another table who had complained, "It's because we are so full!" We wanted to be accommodating and not make things worse by returning that awful chicken.
But now my son has been in the bathroom for three hours throwing up that chicken. When he's not kneeling over the toilet, he's sitting on it. Saying something last night wouldn't have helped, as he'd already eaten a lot of it. So I'm saying something now. Don't go to La Fontana.