Luna Blu Ristorante Italiano — Restaurant in Annapolis

We had a reservation for 11 people which required a credit card on file. The reservation was at 7pm. We arrived at 6:50 because we were told that our reservation would be canceled if we were late. We stood in the narrow hallway leading to an entry into the dining area. We were seated at 7:10.

The dining room is small and cramped. We were seated with half our party against a wall and the other half with our backs to a narrow walkway. Those seated by the walkway were bumped into or hit on the head as people passed by. Because of the small space, there was no room to adjust our seating or our table placement.

Drink orders were taken and rolls were delivered to the table. Once the drinks arrived, we placed our dinner order.

45min later, 2 members of our party received their appetizers soon followed by their salad. They both ordered the 4 course dinner. Everyone else ordered a dish from the menu. 1.5 hrs after we ordered, our dinner was served. 4/9 were cold.

1 order was not correct. Our server, Mary Z. insisted that it was correct. We asked for the correct dish to be brought out. She removes the plate then brings back a similar pasta dish but now with pesto. We tell her it is still not the dish we ordered and she continued to insist that it was the one that was ordered.

It’s funny that when we placed the order, she actually repeated back that the shrimp and scallops in the dish were delicious. But Mary still argued that we ordered what was in front of us. She offered to exchange it with the other dish. We said no thank you since we already waited o er an hour for our dinner.

She left and came back to tell us that she checked the ticket it was only 1.5 hours ago that we placed the order….and since 2 people ordered the 4 course dinner, they held everyone else’s dinner until they were done with the appetizers and salads. Had we known this would occur, the rest of our party would have adjusted our order.

Mary Z. who was listed as our server lacked appropriate customer service, insisting and arguing that everything we were concerned about was not their issue. There was an excuse for everything. While she did offer to correct the dish, we did not accept it since we were already there for almost 2 hours at that point. We just wanted to leave.

The bill included everything we ordered and a 20% gratuity. There was also a service fee for the use of a credit card. You cannot split the bill in any way.

This dinner was a terrible experience. The food wasn’t anything special and the service was slow and lacked attention to detail and customer needs. We also encountered being bumped into several times on our heads, arms, and backs.

Luna Blu Restaurant… lives up to its name. You will leave feeling “blue”and “black and...

  Synopsis:

In my opinion, the entire army is out of step. I cannot understand 424 reviews clocking in at 4.5 stars having experienced a flavorless lunch here. The restaurant curb appeal and interior architecture is charming, service was friendly and professional, Negroni was perfection, wine list very good but the food was blah.

Detail:

On Friday, August 12, 2022 in nearby Pasadena for a 10:00 AM meeting that went better for me than I expected on a gorgeous day - blue sky, puffy white clouds and long coming break from the extended heat wave we have experienced, I decided to drive the short distance to Annapolis for lunch before returning home to Vienna a bit more than an hour drive. It’s been more than four years since my last visiting Annapolis. I have a friend living there that I relied on for restaurant choices in the past who did not pick up my call for a spontaneous lunch invitation.

On my own to choose a spot for lunch, driving on West Street, I parked in the lot next to Stan and Joe’s Saloon finding a bench a couple doors away to casually peruse Google Reviews of the many restaurant options surrounding me just steps away and all oozing attractive curb appeal. Luna Blu directly across the street from where I sat looked particularly appealing and showed 4.5 stars Google rating having 424 reviews. Inside LB the restaurant dripped with charm as small spots like this often have the tendency. The compact, narrow dining room looked to my eye to seat approximately 45 guests and there was no bar. When dining solo I prefer dining at a bar which is usually available.

One of two servers, Chrissie, friendly and professional, seated me immediately. At 1:45 PM the bulk of the lunch crowd were paying their checks and leaving. Chrissie took my drink order accommodating my Negroni recipe (1 shot gin, 1/2 shot Compari and 1/4 shot sweet vermouth stirred on rocks and strained up in a rocks glass). It was perfect. Then I asked for ciabatta or a rustic bread and knew I was in trouble when she said neither was possible, only house bread. The house bread was like store-bought frozen dinner rolls. I ordered Shrimp and Asparagus Risotto that had the flavor profile of tap water. Though the dish was served piping hot and shrimp was fresh, risotto was lumpy and flavorless, asparagus finely chopped and tasteless. I decided to check out other options nearby for dessert and coffee in an effort to save the day.

To make flavorful risotto seasoned stock is added in increments. Stirring each increment of until the Aborio rice soaks it up before adding more seasoned stock. Repeating the cycles until risotto is creamy. It is a tedious, labor intensive process that yields a big flavor payoff. Not...

We have been dying to eat here for some time and it just never worked out until recently (any time we walked in with no resy, there was never anything available and no wait list, which was annoying). So finally made a resy a few weeks out, maybe our expectations were unreasonably high.

It was a double date and everyone got the price fix menu which was one app, one salad, one main, and one dessert for close to $50, a good value. Ordered a nice barolo to get started.

The apps were roundly disappointing in just about every way. I ordered grilled octopus on polenta. The octopus was obviously not fresh (mealy and bland) and drowning in capers which just did not taste right. Someone else got the mushroom tart which was also previously frozen and just disappointing in both presentation and flavor.

Bread arrived at some point and I swear someone had forgotten to salt that batch of dough, it just tasted ... wrong. Also, shouldn't there be some olive oil and balsamic on the table? Or butter? It was just a basket of bland, tepid rolls.

Salads came next and they were...fine. Not bad but I could have made something as good (if not better) at home.

Mains were also just fine. Nothing out of this world but good. I got fra diavolo and the gravy and seafood were good but the pasta was nothing special, certainly not made in-house is my guess.

Desserts ranged from just OK to good, I got limoncello sorbet which was very nice with real chunks of lemon. My wife got tiramisu which, ahem, had chocolate chips in it. A nice touch for an American pallet maybe but I doubt a real Italian would be caught dead putting chocolate chips in their tiramisu, but I could be wrong!

Our waiter was friendly and professional, but made a couple of big blunders, e.g., one person had a tomato allergy (tough thing at an Italian restaurant, granted!) but they discussed it and he suggested a dish for her and when it arrived, turns out it had tomatoes in it after all. D'oh!

Again, maybe our expectations were unreasonably high. I want so much more for the Annapolis food scene though and think we should be holding places like this to a higher standard. We will definitely be back, maybe they were just having an off night, but our expectations will remain high and hope we hope for a better...