Amalfi Cucina + Mercato — Restaurant in Atlanta

In March, we hosted our annual international convention for close to a thousand people in the area. We had been scoping out places for our 35 board members to eat during our stay; Amalfi’s looked amazing, so before leaving for Atlanta, I called to see if they could accommodate our group, be it in-house or for delivery. The person who answered was very nice, but let me know they were slammed and that he would pass a message along to the sales person, would give me a return call. Several weeks later, I still haven’t heard back from anyone. While waiting, we called back, just to ask about a couple people who had gluten / dairy allergies. We learned they, unfortunately, couldn’t accommodate either, so we couldn’t do our board dinner there, however a couple of us were really excited to try it, and headed there after checking into our hotel.

The sign at the entrance indicated we had to wait to be seated, so we did, however there was only one individual at the entrance, and that person was on what appeared to be a personal call. We stood there awkwardly; he didn’t acknowledge our presence for some time, despite looking our way.

Once seated, our server came by to get our drink order. As you can see from the photos, the restaurant was not busy. He introduced himself, we chatted briefly while he took our drink order, I raved about how beautiful the place looked.

The server then took at least ten minutes to return with the drinks (two diet cokes). He took our food order when he brought them to the table. We briefly chatted, he then attended to other tables. Someone else nearly wordlessly brought us our pizza.

The food itself was incredibly unique - my pizza had ricotta cheese in the points, as well as bacon jelly and a fried egg in the center. I’ve never had anything like it but would definitely try it again. My colleague had a different style pizza that had a little bit of a kick to it. Both were delicious.

Our server attended to the table next to us but never returned, even to simply ask if we needed a drink refill (we did). He helped a couple of other tables, but he seemed to always go around us, refusing to make eye contact. Someone else ultimately got our drink refills.

When we were finally able to flag him down for the check, it took at least ten minutes to get it - and we had two pizzas, two diet cokes, and we put everything on one check.

We were both dressed in business casual attire, my colleague wearing a sport coat. We were quiet, friendly, complimentary - I’m not sure what caused the issues we had.

If you look at my other reviews, you may notice this is the first time I’ve not given five stars. I wish they had separate categories for food vs experience, but since they don’t, I’ll clarify: A+ for food and presentation - the options were wonderful and creative and like nothing I’ve ever experienced and the food was delicious! I highly recommend them and, in fact, did so on our proprietary convention app - but a BIG fail on customer service, all the way from the unreturned phone call, to the delay being seated, to the inattentive (rude) person who introduced himself as our server and...

Just bad all around. The atmosphere walking in gave us high hopes but everything went downhill from there. The published menu online showed Veal Bolognese with Parpadelle pasta and is why we chose the restaurant. Upon arrival, the menu listed a different pasta and the waitress (who finally came after we had been there over 10 minutes) said others had expressed concerns about that so she was going to have them update it. The menu listed Veal or Chicken Marsala, Veal or Chicken Picatta but only Chicken Parmesan. There was about a $3 difference between the chicken and veal prices for the other dishes. When I asked if they could make veal parmesan I was told they could, but she would have to ring it in as a steak with a $14 up charge. No thank you! I opted for the Veal Picatta instead. My husband ordered an Old Fashioned and when it came to the table it was a dark brown color. After one sip he asked me to taste it and it was horrible. It tasted like Aperol so we asked if the bartender used that and we were told no. My husband didn’t want to send it back, even though it was offered. We ordered the fried mozzarella and it was bland. The chicken in my son’s fettuccine wasn’t good and the pasta was not cooked properly. My veal was chewy, pasta was almost soggy (the opposite of my son’s dish) and the sauce seemed like it had blended up capers in it. I love capers but this was way too much. My husband said his lobster ravioli was just ok. We gave up trying to finish our meals and asked for the check. The waitress brought over an IPad and then proceeded to manually type in our card number multiple times and said she couldn’t swipe it on her iPad. Is it 2024?! This repeated attempt caused our bank to text us and to confirm that the transaction wasn’t fraud. We approved it and decided to use a different card and asked her to swipe it at the register since we are traveling and didn’t want the bank to block his debit card. No problems with swiping. I read reviews on the booking tool we used after the fact and others clearly had the same experience. Bland food, chewy veal, poor service. Just bad.

Update-I just tried to leave this review on the booking tool we used and it shows our reservation was canceled. I got a no show email 2 hours after our reservation start time even though we said we had a reservation and gave our name. We were seated immediately. This feels like they knew a bad review was coming and listed the reservation as canceled to avoid it. I have disputed it...

DONT LET THE RESTAURANTS RESPONSE FOOL YOU! they never reversed the charge or answered any emails about the excessive charges. I gave up in the end.

I had booked a table for a business lunch after reading great reviews about this place, but unfortunately, the experience was one of the worst I’ve ever had.

When we arrived, I told the hostess about our reservation. She didn’t say a word, just walked away. We stood there confused until she returned and, without any courtesy, said, “Well, you have to follow.” That set the tone for the rest of the visit.

Our server was incredibly unfriendly throughout. The food itself was almost inedible — we were five people, and three of us left at least half of our meals untouched, while the other two barely made it through a third of theirs. After eating, I asked if I could get a green tea. The waiter simply replied, “We don’t have that,” and walked away without giving me a chance to order anything else.

When we were finished, our plates just sat on the table — stacked, with napkins on top — clearly signaling we were done. They stayed there for over 10 minutes. Eventually, I got up and started clearing my own plate. After waiting another 5 to 10 minutes, I asked a server to please clear the table. She looked confused, left, and told our original waiter — who passed by our table five more times without clearing a single dish. Instead, he brought us the bill.

We actually wanted to order another round of drinks, as we were still in the middle of our meeting, but we couldn’t continue with a dirty table in front of us. We ended up sitting there with dirty dishes for around 30 minutes. Then, when we finally got the bill, the waiter stood awkwardly next to our table waiting — at that point, I chose to ignore him.

To make matters worse, the restaurant was practically empty, so there was no excuse for this level of service. It was honestly embarrassing to have brought business partners here — the quality of food and service was simply unacceptable.

Despite all of that, I still left a $10 tip. But now, looking at my credit card statement, I see I was charged a $20 tip I was already hesitant to tip at all and I absolutely did not agree to a $20 tip, and that is not okay.

This was a deeply disappointing experience on every level — food, service,...