Fontana Di Vino — Restaurant in Charlotte

Had a 7:30 reservation and watched a group that walked in get seated prior to our table who was forced to wait past our reservation time, with a pregnant woman.

Sat for 20 mins before a waitress came to our table. Ordered a bottle of wine, 15 mins later, comes back with a totally different bottle. Corrected the waitress before she opened it. 15 more mins, comes back to tell us that the original bottle ordered wasn’t available. We are now here an hour before placing an appetizer order. We opt to place our appetizer and entree orders at the same time, over an hour into the reservation. Apps arrive - overhyped. Polenta presentation was interesting but not sure it’s worth the price. Wasn’t hot and didn’t seem fresh.

Ordered the veal chop Parmesan - very tasty, but also not warm. 2 pasta dishes - rigatoni Sugo and the truffle pasta, which was essentially buttered noodles… no one ever came to our table to add the truffles, so it was $55 for essentially buttery cheesy pasta.

The service here was absolutely horrendous, the waitress knew nothing about wine and continued to offer bottles different than we ordered without being able to provide any suggestions or guidance. She would disappear for 20-30 minute periods of time without checking on us. We spent 3 hours here and left unsatisfied.

I personally would let this place figure out the kinks before ever recommending it to someone. For what you get, it’s not worth the price and the service is among some of the worst I have seen...

I honestly rarely write reviews but feel that Fontana Di Vino has a lot to improve upon. Understanding the restaurant has only been open so long, I understand some kinks need to get worked out. Service was a bit on the slower side and took us 30 min to even get our drinks besides water. I ordered a Hugo spritz and they came back and told me the bar was unable to make that... it is literally elderflower liquour and prosecco... They served the wrong negroni and gave us the negroni spagliato but switched that out. They claim their food is all "local" and "within 200 miles of Charlotte". I need a fact check here! We ordered the classic mozzarella appetizer and guess what! The chef was out of that too but not the other dish? So we pivoted and the crostinis as my husband said are supposed to be hard, but once he tried them he was like wow ok not like this. They were so stale! I cut one in half and the other half flung across the table. The dishes were all 5/10 and ok the pasta really being the star. But let's be honest, how hard is it to mess up some pasta and sauce. They served my husband a potato with cheese in it and UN CUT herbs on top. I mean that the biggest no no in a restaurant industry. It just seemed like a big mess and usually we give places a second try but this was just unacceptable on a lot of levels especially with the price of their items being minimum $20. If you are going to charge that at least cut...

Our waitress, Mahoganee, was very friendly and helpful. She laughed with us easily and checked in at the appropriate times.

The food was not good. It was very bland overall. The fact the at the stracciatella was the consistency of a thin soup should have prepared me for what was to come. I ordered the radicchio and endive salad with seasonal fruit and a sherry dressing. What I received was radicchio and endive drowned in Cesar dressing with a few very thin slices of bland peaches.

I ordered the creamy polenta with mushrooms, parm and chives. There was nothing creamy about it not that I could see it as it was covered in cheap mushrooms and bad parm.

I also had the flank steak. It was cooked to the right temp but was very bland. The toasted garlic on top was cold and the meat itself was room temp at best.

My friend also ordered the burrata. I’m being generous when I say there was a dollop of balsamic on there. When she requested more she was told it’s very expensive and they would have to up charge us.

After 2 glasses of Chianti with questionable lineage, my bill came to $120. I wasn’t even able to eat the salad or the polenta. I would not blink once over $120 for good food. For what received last night I am having serious buyers remorse.

Speaking from experience, they either are corporate owned, have an owner that has too much input or have a chef that is not qualified to create at that...