Darren L.
Yelp
A Disastrous Dining Experience from Start to Finish
I want to preface this by saying I've spent 21 years dining in top restaurants across New York, Los Angeles, and beyond. I judge restaurants based on their location and price point, not by Michelin-star standards. When I saw Amore's menu and pricing, I was eager to try it. Unfortunately, from service to food, the experience was appalling.
From the start, the setup made no sense--menus were leaned against the table on the banquette, meaning they fell to the floor as soon as we sat down. Who wants to start dinner by reaching under the table or stretching across a long banquette just to grab a menu? This bizarre design choice set the tone for an afternoon of frustration. Service was chaotic. Appetizers arrived midway through our entrées. Servers awkwardly reached over banquettes to serve food, asked guests to hand plates to each other, and generally lacked professionalism. Worse, we witnessed restaurant staff eating fries over the kitchen expo pass--unsanitary and a major red flag.
Every dish disappointed. The burrata and beet salad was flavorless. The meatballs (which oddly resembled falafel) were dry, with no fat content. The sauce was equally bland. The hanger steak was completely inedible--tough, low-quality, and lacking the crust and tenderness that should define the cut. It tasted like a food-service product rather than something prepared with care. The shoestring fries were cold and hard on every entrée. The chicken sandwich was unevenly cooked, with some pieces undercooked. Despite the long wait, everything tasted as if it had been sitting under a heat lamp for too long.
Upon arrival, I asked the hostess to take my coat since we were a party of five at a banquette. I assumed it would be stored properly. Instead, when I went to retrieve my wallet from what I thought was a coat check, I found my coat turned inside out and balled up on an unattended banquette at the front of the restaurant. It had clearly been left there the entire time. Completely unacceptable.
Did I expect Amore to be Osteria Mozza or Osteria Francescana in Modena, rivaling the great Italian restaurants of the world? No, absolutely not. But I did expect a well-executed dining experience. Instead, I got one of the worst meals I've ever had. The biggest red flag? On a Saturday during prime lunch hours (11:30 AM - 1:00 PM), only one other table was occupied. That says everything.
Save your money. Amore makes Catablu or Black Canyon (both local recommendations I quite like) feel like Eleven Madison Park or Alinea.
(Attaching a picture of the "coat check" so you can see how wonderful the service truly is at Amore.)