Losanti — Restaurant in Cincinnati

It is with a heavy heart that I write this review as I normally would just never go to the same establishment again. However, with the rave reviews from everyone, from word of mouth to photos of reviews, I must assume our table was the failed experience this past Friday night. I guess not every restaurant is perfect but our experience fell way short of what was expected, especially for a $200 tab that was extremely mediocre and should have been closer to $500 had we fulfilled our plan of action. We are experienced diners and would have loved to soak in all the positivity that this place exudes from the reviews. If it wasn’t for the service and the extra miles that the staff provided, I wouldn’t be here, and would love to give credit where credit is due. Thank you Tyler and Kelsey. Tyler was kind enough to make sure our original reservation kept moving back from 5:15 to 8. My lady and I have newborn twins and are moving to Cincinnati from nashville. So as we have been coming up here once a month, we have tried a new restaurant everytime. This was our one night out this MONTH. Her parents live here and decided to take care of our kids while we go out. On the way here we experienced heavy traffic and had to push our reservation to 6:15. As we inched closer to the city, we hit more traffic and did not get to our hotel until 6:30.We got ready as fast as we could, and dropped off the kids and called in to push it back even further til 8. The host Tyler was very accommodating. We had a few minutes to spare before our reservation so we stopped by hart and cru since our hotel was 4 minutes away. We grabbed several bottles of European wines, specifically pet nats and orange wine. Out of our selection, we decided since we are for sure going to have oysters, to bring a Croatian orange wine that has Malvasia varietal. I knew it was funky, mineralistic, and dry enough to go EXCEPTIONAL with oysters, especially if it was what I had hoped to be eastern oysters from Canada as those are my favorite. This is where it is partly my fault for not calling and checking for a corkage fee.I have been to Prime, Jeff Ruby’s(there’s also one nashville), Eddie Merlots, precinct, and all have obliged to a corkage fee for outside bottles. As experienced diners and wine drinkers, we have tasted almost every single typical wine bottle that are offered at steakhouses, and hardly any of them carry petnats or orange wines. As we sat down our server Kelsy told us the manager did not approve because their liquor license did not allow them to open outside bottles. Maybe the laws have changed since I have served or because they are considered a “boutique” steakhouse, that they have a special liquor license. This is something I am interested in researching. I learn something new everyday! After we were notified that we couldn’t drink our bottle, we opted for Negronis as it’s the perfect aperitif for dinner. Instead of the hopeful 2 dozen oysters that we would have ordered, we ordered 1 dozen because we didn’t have our wine to pair it with. I understand the rules and regulations, but I wished this was an exception, because as a former server in the industry, we all know the more someone drinks, the more food they order. Hence, our “game plan.” We wanted so bad to try the mussels and the burrata as well. Our entree was so underwhelming that I only took two bites. My “prime” steak cut and chewed like a choice grade. And I asked for a Pittsburgh medium rare. Came out more like Blue rare with no char. Pictured is my steak AFTER I sent it back. Still hardly any char or crust. So sad after seeing pictures of everyone else’s ribeye. What went wrong??Gnocchi was okay, tad salty. Elote corn was way too spicy. I’m Vietnamese and my lady love spice. But spice over powered everything. Shrooms were okay and asparagus needed all our lemons squeezed on top. Kelsy checked on us often and boxed our food. I asked her to not box my steak and she comped it. Thank you for the gesture. We left at 10 and went to sotto to turn our night around. Will try...

This is a very difficult review to leave. I made reservations at Losanti’s after many glowing recommendations to celebrate my birthday with my family. When going to a restaurant for a celebration, I am looking for an entire experience, great food, great service, and great atmosphere. We arrived and were greeted by friendly staff and immediately sat my family at our table. Alex our server was quick to visit to take our drink order and explain the menu which included requesting all our courses to be ordered at once to allow them the ability to properly serve each one without lag to us, love that idea! We ordered an appetizer of a dozen oysters, sides and our entrees. I was super excited to try my prime filet mignon, medium rare. I was especially excited because in the menu, Losanti includes the disclaimer “we are not responsible for well done steaks”. I knew I was going to have a beautifully cooked steak.

Oyster took a little while to arrive, Alex apologized for the delay and advised they take extra time to prepare. Totally fine, once they arrived, they were PERFECT, super flavorful and perfectly shucked.

Then our entrees and sides arrived. Everything looked fantastic. My prime filet mignon, Oscar style looked gorgeous, I was so excited to dig in. I cut in to it and the steak was cooked WELL DONE. I sat looking at my steak puzzled for a moment, how had that happened? When Alex stop over to check out how our food turned out, he immediately saw they had incorrectly cooked the steak, apologized and removed my dish so the kitchen could remake my steak.

I ate some sides while my family tucked into their entrees. Sides were good and I snagged a bite from my husband’s NY Strip, cooked medium, that was tasty. And then everyone was finished with their entrees and my replacement streak hadn’t arrived yet. Finally it arrived during the time period I had stepped away from the table with my daughter. And yes, this time when I cut into it, it was cooked perfectly medium rare. Unfortunately, it was 30 minutes later than it should have been and my family was already finished with their meals.

Kristie, assuming a manager, stopped by the confirm everything was okay and to apologize for the delay. And during this time Alex would pop over briefly to check to ensure we still had enough water.

Once I fished my steak, we closed out the meal with a butter cake order, told was the #1 dessert item. This jived with the social media posts of this dish being everywhere. I assumed it was baked to order as it took almost 15 minutes from the time we orders for it to arrive, yet the cake was room temperature, so not sure why the lag time. By the time it arrived, it was 7:15p and we were seated at 5p. My family was ready to go my husband requested the bill which was promptly brought over and after some debate, we did leave a 20% tip. There are a myriad of people responsible for ensuring a meal is prepared correctly for guests. As a whole the staff was friendly throughout our meal and the food was good, but as we walked out of the restaurant, having just paid over $400 for a meal that was supposed to be a fun celebration, my husband and I just felt deflated. Because of the issue with my steak not being cooked properly, and the long delay to get a replacement, what would have been a really great experience became a long disappointment. The enjoyment of the meal was killed and when you spend that much money for a meal it should include enjoyment.

What began as a greatly anticipated birthday celebration meal, ended with “we chose poorly on restaurant selection”, and our first visit to Losanti was...

We just had a fabulous meal at Five on Vine, so we wanted to give Losanti another shot (same group). I had also recently received an email from Crown Republic Group with Losanti's new menu items. We made reservations for the patio on a Wednesday evening at 7:15. We were greeted enthusiastically and shown to our table. The weather was perfect for dining al fresco. Our server Thomas was very professional and forthcoming with menu recommendations. He was also very efficient and friendly throughout the evening. I think the Crown Republic Group does a great job with their servers.

To start we ordered a bottle of lovely Austrian white and the burrata. The burrata came with four slices of grilled bread and is on the sweeter side with golden raisins and dates. We enjoyed the dish, but three of the four bread slices were burnt on one end, so we only had 2/3 of each of those slices. We ordered two pastas; the Fra Diavolo (the new dish) and the Truffle Spaghetti. We also ordered an 8 oz. filet with port butter to split. Then we waited, and waited, and waited. The pastas were very different, but both very good and exceptionally rich. The Fra Diavolo had a fair amount of various seafood that was cooked well. However, I was expecting a traditional tomato-based sauce with crushed red pepper and it was made with more of a chili oil base. (That didn't stop me from stuffing myself with it though:)). The truffle spaghetti was as exactly as decadent as it sounds. Then came the filet that we ordered medium rare. As soon as I cut it open, the host who sat us saw my face and made a B-line to our table saying "that is not prepared like you ordered, is it?" Not even close. It was medium well, with barely any pink in the middle. He whisked it away and within 10 minutes, we had another filet cooked perfectly. The only thing is, it was no way 8 oz. this time. We could visibly tell that it was smaller. As suggested in reviews, we ordered the butter cake to go even though we were stuffed and very ready to leave, as we had been there two hours already. Thomas suggested just taking a bite at the table and then he would box it up. Well, that added another 15 minutes to our night. And yes, the butter cake is good, but the crumb is dense. The flavor is indeed very buttery, the caramel sauce is yummy and the serving size is huge!

When we received our check, there were two filets with port butter listed for $47.00. The one we ordered, and the one that was re-fired. Thomas thanked us for catching the duplicate, but maybe someone should have checked the bill before he presented it to us. Our take-away with our experience twice now is that Losanti is not quite to our (admittedly very picky) 5 star...