Ellina — Restaurant in Aspen

Appalled at the service. Worst dining experience I have ever had ➡️ Arrived 7 minutes early for our reservation and ended up waiting outside for 10 minutes before the young blonde host working this evening runs over to the host stand from a different establishment (not Ellina), doesn't look me, my mother, or father in the eye; begins to putts around on her iPad and doesn't acknowledge our presence until I asked her if she was the host. At this point, it was after our reservation start time. She says she "needs to check on our table." More time passes. I walk into the restaurant and find her on her cell phone talking!! She makes eye contact with me, says nothing, and keeps talking. At this point I walk to the bar and ask the bartender if I can speak with the manager, he then tells me there isn't a manager! A blatant LIE, there is always someone in management present. Thankfully, our server from Duemani last night was sitting at the bar, overheard me, and said he would go grab the respective person. TA-DA! Guess who greats me, the inattentive and unprofessional host! Manager comes out, down plays the far from fine-dining experience we were receiving, and tells us if we leave (because we wanted to) we would be charged $150 ($50/person) for "no showing" our reservation. Ridiculous. So we sat down. He tried to rectify the issue by bringing us two comped appetizers which were appreciated, don't get me wrong.

The host sat us right next to the host stand. Our entire experience was spent with her overlooking our table, talking to the other host, servers, and bartenders pointing, laughing, and glaring at us. Legitimately to the point that a busser asked how our dinner was, we said okay, he then goes and talks to the rude host, returns, and says "so sorry you're upset that you were sat 7 min after your reservation time" and walks away. Ummmmm...?!?!

This was hands down the most atrocious dining experience I have ever had. Coming from someone who worked in the hospitality industry for 8 years while in undergrad and grad school, in large metropolitan cities, ritzy mountain towns riddled with tourism and high turn over, I have more leeway and fuse for subpar service because I actually get what it's like from personal experience. However this was hands down, unacceptable and inexcusable.

Spend your money elsewhere. Better food. And a place where the quality of food and service will actually match your bill total.

A few recs: Duemani, Clark's,...

I am utterly surprised by the good reviews on the food here. The location and restaurant has potential, but EVERY dish we ordered was absolutely foul. The summer greens salad must have been picked last summer, because the lettuce was wilted and limp. We looked at it and couldn’t even build up the courage to taste it. It was AWFUL. The calamari fritti ( which is very difficult to mess up) was served soggy drenched in a very sweet soy sauce ( odd for an “Italian American” cuisine) The Artichokes are just plainly steamed then served in a butter sauce. We were hoping the main courses would save our evening..... A Braised short rib is always supposed to fall off the bone, allowing you to easily eat it with just a fork...it unfortunately was well over cooked, bland, and not braised whatsoever. The tuna poke... They serve it on a steaming hot plate that actually cooks your tuna poke while it’s served to you. That can’t be normal right? My poke dish made my stomach instantly uneasy with the clashing of the top layer of the fish being cold and the bottom being slowly cooked. Service- super unfriendly, unkind staff. The bartender was AWFUL, one of the worst people I have ever encountered in the service industry. I ate there almost a week ago, and the horrible food and service has infuriated me still a week after that I had to warn others! I looked over the reviews and saw the owners spends most of their time slandering bad reviews, than time on improving the quality of their place. I will say, The location is fantastic! My suggestion to the owner is spend more time in investing on your food and service and not having to constantly defend your restaurant on the bad reviews... BTW here is our reso our hotel made so she doesn’t claim we are a “internet trolls” like I see she has on previous bad reviews. Good luck! And eat elsewhere! Enjoy aspen, but don’t spend...

The service was the poorest I've ever experienced in Aspen, and the food just mediocre. The server was very difficult to get to come to our table for service. The food was delivered by someone else at the wrong time to the wrong people. We waited for a very long time for the food. The only thing the server seemed interested in was adding more drinks to the bill. There were four of us and when we asked for a table we asked if we could split it because we weren't together. They said no problem. After going and asking for the server to come to our table two times someone he brought 3 checks. My check was for zero dollars and the other two checks didn't reflect the total. A woman came over and asked what the problem was as we tried to figure out what the problem was. We explained one check was zero and the other two were the wrong amount. She said...I'm the owner we don't split checks and don't do your math for you. She was extremely rude. We were trying to save her over 100$ because my check was zero. She took our checks and left. 20 minutes later another server we hadn't met came up and said they split the check equally between four people on 3 checks. One of our party asked if the owner would come and apologize for the rudeness. The server said yes. The owner never returned, so we finally left and went to CASA TUA which gave us fantastic service for dessert and drinks with much better service and food. Unless Ellina gets new ownership I would never go back. Casa Tua is a better alternative and I recommend it. ...