Ventura's Italian Kitchen & Wine Bar — Restaurant in Bradenton

Let me start by saying, I am aware this place has only been open a little while, but my first experience will be my last. heres how this lpayed out... Got there at 7p. 2 tables with 2 people each there before my 3 person group showed up. First thing was drinks, girl takes our request and starts to run off. We had already been there for almost 10 mins, I had to stop her and offer to order Calamari. "Sorry we're out". Im sure its the most popular appetizer, but she said they run out Tue or Wed every week (with a single shipment of supplies on Thursday. So she brings us our Sweet Tea (not at all sweet). I asked for a lemon, and got a sliver.. So now we've been sitting for about 15 minutes and our waitress takes our order. I got Chicken Marsala, Mom got Eggplant (no pasta, she didnt want the carbs). and pizza for my kid. So now we are here for about 25 minutes and the waitress (by herself) is in the middle of taking an order and interupts the person talking to go run food... to the first table that was there before my group. She does this again about 1 minute later when another plate is put up. (The cook was putting up 1 plate at a time the whole night). By the time table number 2 got their food the resturant now has 7 tables with a total of 22 peaople. At this point they are serverly understaffed, and I heard the waitress tell another table they were out of something else. Our food is now coming out, waitress gets the plate position of all 3 plates wrong. (I chocked it up to her being overwelmed, but annoying none-the-less. This was almost 45 minutes after we ordered. Eggplant comes out with more weight in sause then the eggplant weighted (maybe 2oz), and supposedly they gave mom a little extra because she didnt want the pasta. That was a $20 meal with no exceptions to discount. My marsala - This is one of my goto first meals to see if I like a resturant. They used a regular wine to cook with and didnt cook off the alcohol, so along with the bottom of te plate being watery the wine was a bit overpowering. Mushrooms were overcooked, and chicken was coated in breadcrumb based mix instead of flour. this gave the chicken a pasty taste because of the wine it was sitting in. Pasta was well cooked, but was cold in all the places not covered by chicken. When we got the check (before knowing there was "extra" eggplant, I asked about the pricing, and got an attitude about it). Check comes and I give the waitress cash. took 5 minutes for her to find $30 in change. Instead of giving me $1's, $5's, and a $10, I get a $10 and a $20. I wasn't leaving a $20 tip with $15 dollars worth of Drinks.

I looked at other reviews before I wrote this short story, but I didn't have the same experience as others, unfortunately. For a place that is open less than 40 business hours a week I would expect it to be a better experience. Tables dont get prepper for a customer till they walk in the door (I was there 2 hrs after open). No bread offered to the tables (This was a first for me, as EVERY italian resturant I've ever eaten at had some sort of bread starter. And in the end, the Experience was way over priced.

I may take a chance, if they're still open, in another 6 months or so. I'll give them a chance to get a better handle on how they do things. I wish them luck moving forward and hope...

I feel bad giving a low rating to the service, as it isn’t really the entirely the server’s fault. The food at this restaurant is delicious. They need a lot of work for the front of the house, though. They are understaffed and undertrained. The waitstaff is embarrassingly casual for a restaurant that could be upscale. For example, we called ahead and were told a table would be ready. When we arrived, the girls said they knew we were coming and started to clean a table that was already empty. Not that big a deal really, but then when we were seated, we were not informed of any menu items being unavailable. We waited over ten minutes between seating and an initial greeting from our server, who was clearly very frazzled. (Restaurant at half capacity, and the line cooks looked bored) She started to take our orders, then interrupted to say they were out of Eggplant parm after we ordered it. Then we ordered chicken parm, and she said “we are out of that too.” Again, not a big deal but knowing in advance would have helped. (Strangely, they were not out of chicken or eggplant and with the cooks looking so bored, they probably could have breaded a chicken breast, but whatever.) The waitress then left our table mid order and took two other tables orders. About 5 minutes later we got our drinks- 3 half-filled Pepsi which she apologized for and said she would return with refills. ( Our glasses sat empty for the entire meal even after asking for refills. The bill for the sodas alone was $12)

Four out of five meals arrived and they were delicious. The chicken was so tender, the sauces were amazing, and the pasta was perfectly cooked. The fifth meal- an Italian sandwich for my 93 year old father- didn’t arrive until I stopped two different servers and asked them for his meal. They were both very apologetic, but his sandwich didn’t arrive until everyone else had finished. And even then, we watched as it sat in the window while our server ran around trying to do things for other parties. When she delivered the check we were pretty surprised to see 3 Pepsis for $12 and that we were charged for the sandwich that my father couldn’t eat because it had arrived so late.

(I asked if the bill was correct and she took it back and comped the sandwich. )

This review should not deter you from going to this place- the food really is wonderful, but manage your expectations. Go if you have lots and lots of time and patience. Skip it if you have a movie to get to or...

This is for a To-Go order. The price to quality ratio is not high for me and my family at this time. When my wife paid for the 2 large 18" pizzas, deep fried mozzarella and cheesy bread sticks, the total was over $70 (-1 star). Talk about sticker shock. When my wife questioned about the price she was told the price is because of the quality of the food. Well, I can say it is not and my kids said it was, "uhh, it was ok", and they are NOT picky eaters. When my wife got home there was only 3 little triangle mozzarella sticks and that was $10 buck (-1 star). So not enough to share. The pizza crust was hard and ever so slightly burnt on the bottom (-1 star). Regarding the crust, even though it was hard to chew, it was kind of good I thought. The crust has a very pleasing taste to me and has plenty of spices, not plain by any means. If they could soften the crust a little more it would be excellent (+1-star for the edge crust). If you like dipping your edge-crust then I think you will enjoy this. The cheesy bread sticks was not adequately covered in cheese, so some of the sticks was just bread, ok if your a dipper I guess, but I am not (-1 star). The pizza was a little lacking in toppings and the cheese I thought was very thin. One thing is for sure, when the cheese is thin like that it gets fully cooked and I think that's their goal for the pizza they make. Not my cup of tea however. I like it soft and stretchy on a pizza.

For now I am not going to recommend this place to a struggling family for pizza due to the price/quantity ratio, but I will go back in a few months and give it another go. They are new to me and I assume have not been opened up to long because we just heard about them. I am betting they have some details to work out. So they do deserve a fair shake and I suggest you give them a try and judge for yourself if you don't mind a slightly higher price. Leave a review if you do. We want them to be in business for a long time so give them your comments. If they listen then they will be successful and we want that in Bradenton. I'm rooting for you guys, so get to work.

I edited this review to show the proper...