Il Convivio Troiani, 1 *, disappointing
Tl:dr; overall experience and food was disappointing compared to quality of other places. The haute french style service just came across as rude.
I was really looking forward to this visit after reading some good past reviews online.
overall the crisps on the branch hanging from the ceiling to start the evening we a novel idea, and ultimately where the creativity seemed to stop.
The amuse-bouche were tasty enough, and seemed to start the evening off right. After this the other courses just didn't live up to expectations.
The service from the waiters I can only explain as "standoff-ish", our main waiter just seemed to look like he didn't want us or himself to be there. Our prawn course (forgot to take a picture) was cooked infront of us on coals, at no point did he say a word about it, when bring over the coals and prawns to cook, during which he covered the coal box with them in, and watched his watch for the timing. Then took them out, sat them on our plate and stated simply these "are the prawns". I watched the service at other tables, it was the same, at least it wasn't just they didn't like our table :D
I will call out however the sommelier was lovely and friendly, and great to chat to about the wine.
The salad on paper dish which seemingly copies the famous All’Antico Vinaio style of serving, was a pain in the butt to eat off the paper.
The mushroom dish in mushroom broth, the whole dish had zero taste, the texture was boiled mushrooms. Not much else to say really, at the table we didn't bother to finish it.
I was worried that as our first Italy fine dining, the others we had booked on our trip were going to be this way and we'd messed up.
Safe to say the others we visited in Florence returned to normal service we'd expect from a fine dining restaurant. I'll eventually get around to writing them up, but they were Gucci Osteria and Ristorante Borgo San Jacopo.
Edit: I forgot to mention, the main dessert course was a fruit salad, that had chunks of celery. Personally I'm not a fan of celery, it overpowered whatever its on the plate with when its raw. And yes in this case, that happened too.
Edit 2: the brown watery dish - that's the mushroom course I mentioned :D