We had an early Sunday dinner at Gennaro's, before the mini choir performance held at St. Giles.  While I was not expecting an above average experience, I was hoping for at least decent.  Super-friendly welcome, overcompensated for its emptiness & unpopularity.\n\nThe calamari fritti was a bit tough and coated in basic pantry flour, no light crunch to be found.  If fast food joints added 'calamari' onto their menu, this is what it'd be like. Bits over fried and patches of still raw flour taste.  Served atop a bed of house salad with tomatoes; rocket; iceberg did not help the dish.\nThe bruschetta was a shame to its name.  Below mediocre, should be taken off the menu.  Hard to swallow bread, plastic cheese, unsavoury fishiness.\nPizza was closest to average of the night.  Bit smaller than other restaurant pizzas and unremarkable.\nRecommend sticking to just pizza and pasta, if you end up here.  Average food filler. \n\nService was overdone to the point of being a nuisance.  The server and bar man/owner alternating every 5-10 mins asking if everything was alright but not actually providing any service.  The hostess in her work apron smoking out front during her break, was a foreshadowing we should have heeded.      \n\nIf I had to try to be fairer with a second try at this place, I would have to begrudgingly return.  Walking a few mins further to any one of the many decent Italian restaurants in Edinburgh seems a worthwhile investment.. as far as your tastebuds are concerned.