Ferraro's Kitchen Blue Ridge — Restaurant in Blue Ridge

My entire family is Italian from Butera, Sicily and Spinea, Italy, and I have visited Italy at least a dozen times, spending countless hours with my Nonna in the kitchen. This is what inspired me to be a food critic.

Three major things make a good restaurant, Ambiance, Service, and Food.

Ambiance: When I first walked into the restaurant, it felt a little stale, seeming like the restaurant took a restaurant template and built out the restaurant. I would have loved to see a little more “view of Italy” in the décor and the overall accents

Service: Disappointing. Once we were set down, I noticed a bunch of servers standing around. It took 10 minutes for one of the waiters to come to our table. Our waiter was from Venezuela and was brought up from their Miami restaurant to help with the startup. Six months in, he decided to stay in blue ridge. Several little nuances were missed. When we ordered our appetizer, and they brought it out – (burrata) – we ate 3/4 of the appetizer before he came over and asked us if we wanted pepper. Too little too late. Once we finished our apps, he asked us if we were ready to order our entrees. We did, and at the end, I asked him to clear the plates. He left empty-handed, and it took them 13 minutes to return to take the plates away so we could continue enjoying our wine.

Food: Very Disappointing, especially from a Chef born in Venice.

Appetizers: We ordered the Burrata and Rice Balls for appetizers and Lasagna and Ossobuco for dinner.

Burrata – The overall presentation was great, and I was excited to cut into the Rice Ball – which led to disappointment. It was very dense and very firm inside. Burrata is supposed to be firm on the outside with an oozing softer interior made of small cheese curds and starchy. When you traditionally cut into a Burrata, it should be creamy with a consistency like a cottage cheese.

Fontina Cheese Rice Balls - what we call Arancini in Italy, can have many variations. However, this was more of a cheese ball than a rice ball. For starters, the cheese inside should only be 1/4 of the inside. For example, You should use 1 ½ cups of rice for every 5 ounces of Fontina Cheese. In this case, it seemed like they used 1 ½ cups of fontina cheese and 5 ounces of rice balls.

Ossobuco: I knew when they brought it out and placed it in front of me that there was an issue. The presentation was subpar, clearly showing me the Risotto was not cooked correctly. The Ossobuco itself, however, was amazing. The risotto was the issue. The risotto was runny and mushy. Every risotto dish must be of the perfect consistency and texture. It cannot be too runny, and it cannot be so thick that it resembles sticky rice. It needs to be able to slightly spread but stay firmly together when the plate is wiggled back and forth -- a happy medium.

Lasagna: Again, the presentation was lacking. While the lasagna looked good, it was buried in the sauce. I would have liked for them to use less sauce and allow the lasagna to stand independently. Taste-wise, I would say the lasagna was on point, and the sauce was a classic marinara.

Chef Igor was there. However, he spent most of his time chatting with a guy at the bar. I think he should spend a little more time making sure the food going out meets his standards. I also was not impressed that he did not walk by and ask us how our meal was. He seems a bit absent.

My biggest issue was what I witnessed toward the end of our meal. Given that they had an open-air concept for the kitchen, I noticed the two final line workers finalizing our dishes. One guy was constantly playing with his mustache and then (without washing his hands) would work on prepping dishes. The other guy literally put his fingers in his mouth while in between prepping dishes. This was quite disgusting.

Overall – I would not go back. Now I understand why he chose Blue Ridge to start this restaurant. Lack of competition. He could deliver a subpar experience for a high price and know you cannot go...

I'm perplexed by the positive reviews for Ferraro's. It's preposterously over-priced mediocrity. 2 weeks ago, I ate at an amazing Italian restaurant in Manhattan, and it was easily 25% less expensive than Ferraro's, while also being infinitely better in taste. While I know costs have gone up for everyone, there's no excuse for a restaurant in Blue Ridge, GA to charge significantly more than a superior restaurant in NYC.

While I was immediately shocked by the sky-high prices, I maintained a positive disposition because it was my wife's birthday dinner and I was 100% fine with splurging a bit to celebrate her. Yet our waiter was determined to ensure we had a bad time. We started by ordering cocktails, and he immediately snatched our drink menu and wine glasses. We responded with: "will you please leave the wine menu? We'll probably order a bottle of wine to go with our food." He said, shockingly, "a bottle of wine is 4 glasses. You can't have that after a cocktail." Our waiter shamed us for even suggesting that 2 adults may consume 3 drinks per person over multiple courses.

After 20 minutes of waiting, we finally received our cocktails. When we tried to order appetizers, we learned they were 86'd. No other starters sounded good to us, so we moved on to ordering main courses. Again, we were faced with judgmental comments from our server. "You're ONLY going to order entrees?!?" His eyeroll was unprofessional and uncalled for. We gladly would've ordered appetizers if they had been available. Please forgive us for not wanting to spend $20 on a caprese salad that may cost $3 to make.

Our mains arrived and continued the theme of disappointment. My wife ordered the lasagna, which was essentially just meat and noodles. No bechamel, no mirepoix, no ricotta, no layers, just meat and noodles with a spoonful of sauce on top. Stouffer's lasagna would've tasted better. I had the risotto with mushrooms and truffles, and it was fine, I guess. Utterly unremarkable.

When my wife made the reservation, she mentioned it was for her birthday. When we sat down, I mentioned how excited I was to celebrate my wife's birthday. Yet the staff couldn't be troubled to even say: "happy birthday! We're glad you chose to celebrate it with us!" Nope, they couldn't care less.

At the end of our meal, my wife was in tears: "I can't believe I chose such a horrible restaurant for my birthday." She thought she had chosen an upscale place, but Ferraro's is awful. Thankfully, we found a dessert place down the road that was amazing and redeemed the night for us. I'm so glad they made up for Ferraro's. I wouldn't recommend this place to my...

It was my wife's birthday and I notified the restaurant of this but unfortunately nothing was even mentioned about it or her dietary restrictions. A happy birthday would have been nice and also acknowledgement of her restrictions. There was so much not pleasing about this place can't believe so many people like it. We live in Blue Ridge and were excited about finally going to what we hoped was a good restaurant and dining experience. Well it was an experience for sure.

The hostess was training someone and she was pretty much useless in sitting us because she was busy telling the new hire what to do. The table is small with a lamp - why??? - fake flowers - ARE YOU KIDDING ME!! Asked for black napkins and was told they did not come in - yeah right. Sebastian - waiter finally came over but did not mention specials. Glass of wine was ordered - small pour in a huge glass which was hard to drink out of - for the price of $19 could have been a better pour. Sebastian was OK but nothing special and his accent was so thick was hard to understand and he seemed so rushed and not interested. Presentation of food was lacking - looked like it was just put on the plate. Lasagna was good but pear dumplings had hardly any taste of pear and one that did had a hard piece of pear that was not edible. When waiter was told of this he just said he would tell chef to be sure to clean pears better. Would have liked a salad but why choose kale for Cesar salad??

We've had much cheaper restaurants acknowledge things. Even Harvest gives a free dessert for birthdays. Ambience was nothing special but at least it was not too loud even though several tables were filled. The bread was OK but why not also offer butter in lieu of olive oil. Not everyone likes eating tasteless oil.

Unfortunately this was our first and last trip to this local restaurant which bills itself as something much more special than it is. They have a dress code but sadly they don't seem to care what you wear. It is sad as there is not much to choose from in Blue Ridge for...