Acqua Di' Mare — Restaurant in Chandler

Due to the great reviews online, we booked a reservation last evening for a group of 4. Prices were as expected for a "fine dining" restaurant, and we anticipated the service and food to match. Unfortunately, we left extremely disappointed. I am genuinely confused as to how our experience was so poor compared to recent amazing reviews, because I would not recommend this restaurant to anyone.

On a positive note, we all ordered cocktails and they were good, especially the espresso martini. We also received cannolis on the house and they were great (on the house partially due to a birthday, and another order due to our steak needing to be remade).

Now for the bad: we spent almost 3 hours dining due to unnecessarily long wait times in between courses, uncoordinated tableside plating, a dish needing to be remade, drink refills, and checks at the end taking longer than expected.

When we arrived, our menus were not the same, and we realized after asking our server that one of us received a correct updated menu and the other three were incorrect. After a quick explanation of a couple items that weren't available or changed, we were left with our incorrect menus.

The staff members kept getting in each other's way and it felt uncomfortable and awkward. We waited 10+ minutes for water refills, and had to finally ask twice for more water, which was strange as several staff members were circling around.

Here is a breakdown of the food we ordered:

-Appetizers:

---The pork belly was terrible. No flavor and very difficult to cut and serve.

-Main course: ---The Steak Nikola took over 20 minutes (which was communicated to us when ordering), but it came out nearly cooked to well done and needed to be remade. Our server said the new order would be done in 10 minutes. We ended up waiting another 20 minutes for the new order to arrive. They plated the meal again tableside which was unnecessary and caused additional waiting when we were all nearly done with entrees. The "prosciutto cotto" on top looked and tasted like deli ham.

---Short Rib Pappardelle was generally alright, but the meat tasted like it was made in a crockpot.

---Cacio E' Pepe tasted like fettucine alfredo and used fettucine noodles - it was room temperature despite being fired and tossed in a wheel of cheese at the table.

---Sacchetti Porcini & Truffle was probably the favorite entree of the evening, but also not warm enough.

All in all, I think this restaurant needs to make significant changes to justify their prices and "fine dining" description on...

My husband and I have been so eager to try this restaurant. After seeing great reviews online we were expecting a great experience.

He booked our reservation two months in advance for Valentine’s Day. The day-of was already booked out, so we settled for the day after.

The dichotomy of our experience LOOKING super elevated and at the same time FEELING very lacking was…surprising.

We were greeted by three kind and friendly young hostesses, in casual wear, which surprised me seeing as the waiters were all in nice attire. Also, another man (maybe the owner?) was roaming around serving but also turning on heaters in a very casual tshirt which shocked me. Definitely not the elevated experience I expected.

We were then seated only 5 feet away from the hostess stand, at the first table on the patio. Seeing as we booked our table 2 months in advance, we were hoping for at least a table where we could hear each other, but instead we were so close to the front that we could easily hear the hostesses’ private conversations.

It was very distracting and I felt overwhelmed by the combination of the loud music, the street noise and listening to the hostesses the whole meal. I’ll also add that our physical table was incredibly unstable which made eating difficult, as even the slightest bump (let alone needing to cut meat) almost caused spilled drinks. Not something I’d expect at a fine dining restaurant.

The food itself was good, but not worth $40-50 a plate. The portions of pasta were very small. My husband had a large plate of lamb chops (4) and sides. The cocktail was excellent as was the wine.

I was disappointed in the service, our waiter didn’t check on us once until after we had both finished our meals. My glass of water had been empty for nearly 10 minutes before he noticed, and by then we were ready for the check.

Overall, I’m pretty disappointed. For a lot of hype, it definitely fell below my expectations. We won’t be...

We dined here for on early Valentine's dinner on 2/10. Our reservation was at 4pm, which we arrived a little early. We figured it was worth a shot to maybe sit down. The hostess was clearly annoyed that we arrived early and told us to come back at 4 because the servers werent ready. Totally understandable and happy to wait. But a hello, how are you, maybe even a smile would have been nice.

We come back at our booked time and she said we can seat you now and attempts to sit us outdoors. It was pretty chilly outside so I asked to be seated indoors, which seemed to annoy her very much. She didnt say anything, checked the books, and sat us inside with hardly interaction. After we were sat, she immediately went over to another employee to seemingly complain and talk badly about us. Odd since we were the first ones in the restaurant and I cant think of what we did to annoy her so much, since we only wanted to enjoy our dinner and not be cold. I wasnt rude, asked nicely.

Throughout the evening, i noticed her vibe didnt change. She seemed upset to even be there. She would be slouched over at the hostess stand, on her phone, looking fairly miserable to be there.

I was pretty bummed about this initial experience and was worried I picked a bad Valentine's dinner spot, but our server completely turned things around. She was absolutely lovely and incredibly professional. She even offered to take our picture without me even prompting. By far one of the best servers I've had in a long time. The food was spectacular. The gentleman who made my pasta tableside was wonderful as well.

I hate to give this restaurant the service rating that I am, but the hostess left and incredibly bad taste in my mouth. If it werent for the server, I would have felt uncomfortable the entire night. If I could give the server a 5 star rating, I would but the hostess was easily a 0. A shame for such an otherwise...