Heather P.
Yelp
We had dinner here on a Friday night, arriving right as they opened. We had a reservation but waited in line for several minutes prior to being greeted. No one was rude, just understaffed. Some of the food was great, some was more fair-to-middlin', disappointing for the price point. Overall our experience falls in the Not Good category.
The food was OK, not great. We tried ordering carpaccio but they were out. The calamari was pretty salty. It would have benefited from a squeeze of lemon and some horseradish in the cocktail sauce. It came with two sauces, a tomato sauce and what seemed to be mayonnaise. There was no oomph to either sauce. We didn't finish the calamari. The garlic bread was OK. It wasn't very garlicky or buttery. More like garlic-scented, grilled bread. I didn't eat all of it, which says something because I LOVE bread.
We had a house salad and a Caesar salad. For some reason the Caesar had dressing on the salad and a cup of dressing in the bowl. I don't know why. My tablemate didn't get any dressing with his house salad.
The entrees were good. One friend had a rare fillet. It was cooked perfectly and was delicious. Very nice presentation. The braised short ribs with gnocchi also were good. They had an interesting flavor. The clams with spaghetti had a great presentation but my friend said it was "pretty peppery," moreso than she would have liked. I had the chicken Parmesan. It was ok. The chicken was very thin and a little dry. The sauce was on the side, in a little cup and spilled on the plate; the sauce was cool. Not the saucy, rich comfort food that is usually chicken parm.
The food wasn't the biggest issue. The service was the issue. Not just our server, but the atmosphere. I try not to nitpick, but the service was bad enough it was hard to ignore. We all commented on it. Waiting 30 min for cocktails and sitting with empty plates on the table shouldn't happen when the entrees are at least $30.
Unfortunately our server was seated a 12-person table at the same time we were seated. The service definitely suffered. After 20 minutes of not being greeted we asked the busser to bring the manager, who was expediting in the open kitchen about 15 feet away. The manager then got the server to come take our drink order. I was thinking he could have taken the order or had another server help her, but no. After we ordered, the food came fairly quickly. The server made it a point to check on us. But then she disappeared so we had to ask the busser to get her for the checks. By that time our plates were empty, so it had been a while. When she came back, the checks weren't ready so that's as another wait. She did comp our drinks but that didn't help the woman who didn't have a drink. And the checks were split wrong. Overall frustrating.
Prebussing and teamwork seemed nonexistent. Multiple servers and bussers passed by our table with empty hands even though we had piles of empty plates on the table. I have no doubt that our server was working hard and was busy with the large table. The manager never came back to check and in fact ignored us when we left. That was disappointing but maybe he thought I was a troublemaker. I'm sorry if that was the case, I'm actually pretty easygoing.