Dattilo - STRONGOLI

Great curiosity for the cuisine of this restaurant that has definitely been repaid. the location is a beautiful stone hall with a large fireplace, which well marries with the country landscape in which it is located. the service is entrusted to a type and young maitre. as the sommelier is young and prepared. on the wines, in fact, we were already oriented to their production, but we were optimally faced in the choice of the bottle. the kitchen partly explains the recognition of the “green star”, since it makes a large oo of native plants (one of the invitations, for example, were flowers of acacia in tempura.) the dishes absolutely to mention: egg, chicory and sardella (sublime) and rice peas and fennel, apparently simple, but of great effect. almost like eating freshly picked peas. recognition for the most deserved chef.

Wonderful sensorial experience that perpetuates on the contrary improves more and more by marrying in a fantastic way the bio thought “green” with the perfect use of the products of the territory and especially its “garden” without any kind of contamination. you have to taste, taste and let yourself be guided by the passion of the chef caterpilla and his attentive and professional staff. Congratulations.

We chose for the chef's menu Grayasusi. A wonderful taste experience. On the one side very simple but on te other side very complex. We enjoyed it very much. And with the wonderful service from the staff!

In view of the Michelin rating I was expecting more and better. The service was outstanding and the fixtures very smart, but the room was marred by being very stuffy and warm with neither fans nor ventilation. An annoying computerised piano loop of various greatest hits repeated three times during our meal; all the decorative candles went out during the meal and were not replaced. My host ordered a fixed menu and the house wines. The latter were typical Calabrians and very pleasant but the cooking showed a surprisingly heavy hand in the kitchen, lovely pieces of fish, then ricotta ravioli, then shrimp drowned out by too much bergamot, fennel and some sort of oddly powdery green crust on a fish fillet. The amuses and the desserts were however exemplary. As a guest I didn't pay the bill but the menu prices were high and my (by then sweating) host didn't seem too happy.

The five of us went with the purpose to spend a dinner and an overnight agriturismo Ceraudo enjoying tasty and creative 1* Michelin cuisine. Let me start with giving feedback about our experience with Ceraudo/Dattilo: The dinner. Tasty, creative, high quality ingredients km zero, wide selection of bread (hard to find in Calabria and thus much appreciated), solid selection of Calabrian wines (key to excellent dining) . . . always worth to plan a dinner shouldn't you care about the alarmingly high prices (far off everything else we experienced during our past 30 years of travel across the globe). The breakfast. It was tasty and fresh, high quality ingredients locally sourced which is excellent, service again mediocre, the waiter showed up in inappropriate clothing, food selection and variety was below average, we had to let the waiter know the evening before what time we have planned breakfast (who the heck knows what time he will show up for breakfast during vacation). The service. Poor service and not worth a dime. The waiters/waitresses were not friendly and – apparently – not motivated to serve the customer, they didn’t pay attention to our needs and were not prepared to meet our requests, there wasn’t a maître that coordinated the staff for total customer experience. We sat outside (basically beautiful garden and terrace) and had to fight with all the myriads of insects that contributed to our dissatisfaction. Upon talking to the waiter and letting him know . . . overall, there is a lot of room for improvement if it comes to excellent Michelin starred service. The rooms. We decided to overnight the agriturismo so to fully enjoy dinner and wine. It was not at the level you might expect: The room was very old fashioned, there was NO TV, the bath room was sleazy and battered, the outdoor pool was not well maintained and there was no pool service whatsoever (drinks, towels, etc. missing), while we were hanging around at the pool the gardener wanted to turn on the sprinkler system (yes, we are talking about 4pm in the afternoon where you are supposed to stay pool side) . . . Pricewise EUR 180 (for two adults and one child) per night in a countryside agriturismo in Calabria is far off acceptable for the delivery of services and room interior. Quality of stay is low compared to competition on an European scale. We will not spend another night at this facility.