Fiamma Centro — Restaurant in City of Rochester

Would rate with negative stars if it was an option.

The owner/manager/chef is the most unprincipled and disreputable person I've ever dealt with. The level of unprofessionalism here is unparalleled. I'm in no way an expert on dining experiences but I've eaten at enough places to know the timing in which food should arrive, and I've also been a HUMAN long enough to know that a manager shouldn't insult the customer that is making a complaint.

After waiting 30 minutes just to take our order, you would think it wouldn't take another hour to get appetizers out. Even for a large group of 9. Ordering at 7:45, it was nearly 8:45 when I asked to speak to the manager.

My wife and I decided we did not want to wait anymore to eat after 9 PM and were going to leave the restaurant. I was in the process of handing one of my friends money to pay for my drinks, since that's all I had gotten, when the manager finally came up to our table. I began to address the issues to him.

• We hadn't received our SOUP still. An hour after ordering, and NO SOUP. • We asked our server three separate times if the food would be out soon, the last time requesting the manager. • 3 separate 4 person tables were seated and received their food before us. • Our server did not bring bread to us until we had asked.

Rather than simply APOLOGIZE FOR THE LONG WAIT and explain the reasons (ex. Perhaps they were understaffed, having kitchen troubles, etc.), the manager simply would not accept that we were not going to be staying for our food. His response was "but you're food will be out any minute, we are cooking your porterhouse". And I kept explaining. And he kept saying "but your porterhouse". And I explained AGAIN. And he was simply not understanding that the porterhouse was no longer desired. He raised his voice and again said "but you ordered a porterhouse and it will be out any second". As I did not like his tone, I wasn't as nice this time and told him I was leaving.

From this point on, a lot happened very fast, and a lot of words were thrown around from a bunch of different people. His reaction was something that anyone working in customer service should NEVER act like to a customer. "Who the hell are you? Do you know who I am?" he shouted. He proceeded to lean up and push on our table shouting at everyone in our party as they chimed in and defended us. He yelled that his restaurant wasn't to blame and that we weren't right in complaining, eventually shouting "you're the reason I don't serve WHITE TRASH" and yelling for us to leave his restaurant. Our entire party stood up, left money for the drinks, and left the restaurant, only for some random couple to chime in on our way out and tell us we should've gone to Olive Garden. The nerve.

The hostile manager took our complaint as a personal attack to his "high class ego". If he had just simply came over to apologize for the wait and explained why, we would have been happy with it but Fiamma Centro and their glorious staff can do no wrong clearly.

I've definitely waited too long for my food before at a restaurant. My guess would be everyone has. That would have been forgivable, if the restaurant had handled it differently. We weren't asking for a free meal or for them to take off something from our bill. Instead we were treated like unwanted customers...

Updated review:

Decided to give it a second shot. We had a reservation for 2 at 5. Show up and the hostess tries to seat us right at the top of the stairs, and I mean, like two feet or less from the foot traffic. In an empty dining room. We ask to change seats. Hostess sighs and proceeds to sit us at another two top table that felt like it was going to fall over. Under the split AC unit that was pumping out hot air. So we ask to move downstairs.

Proceed to order two appetizers - the mussels and the fried seafood dish. As I see my wife looking over my shoulder I turn around. Our mussels are sitting under the heat lamp while the two waitresses are face down in their phones at the end of the bar. Expo guy walks over and stands next to the line. The mussels sat under that heat lamp for nearly 10 minutes. Just as I was about to say something the fried dish comes up. Apparently he, nor the servers, could be bothered to make two trips. So we have our room temperature mussels and hot seafood. Which brings me to the initial review that still stands - the food is great, the service is terrible. My wife then sees one of the cooks VAPING AS HE'S COOKING FOOD. We had planned on ordering two entrees and a bottle of wine. But at that point we decided to leave and go somewhere that doesn't make you pay through the nose for an incompetent wait staff.

Great food balances the obtuse staff. An appetizer was brought to the table that apparently only the waiter heard me order (because none of our 5 guests did). Instead of doing the polite thing - he insisted that I had ordered it and subsequently tried to charge us for it. Which brings me to my next point - 20% gratuity was added automatically to the check. We saw no mention of this practice before ordering. My family is generous in our tips being that most of us have worked in the industry. Being made to tip a waiter who was argumentative is offensive. All said - the food...

Went to a party booking upstairs. When you walk in the restaurant it has a wonderful atmosphere and energy. Slightly strange decor in that it didn’t seem to follow any specific pattern. We were sat in the upstairs party room which was cold, it didn’t seem to be heated equally and was not a comfortable place to sit. For our party of 19, we had ONE server/bartender. Believe me when I say it’s not an exaggeration that it took over 45 minutes for every guest to get a drink. The upstairs bar wasn’t even full stocked so the poor girl had to keep running downstairs for drinks. The food took HOURS to arrive in a “family style”. Every single plate was enough food for 5 people, despite there being 8 at each table. Often times there were 2-3 people without food or full portions at the table. The food was okay but nothing to write home about, and everything was too salty. When the entree came there were 5 small slices of steak for 8 people. We complained about the portion to the waitress who brought the chef up who was rude and said “there were enough for everyone”, despite this, they brought more, but it took another 20 minutes. For a dinner, we were there for 4 hours to get everything served.

HORRIBLE service, understaffed, under portioned food that was over salted and poorly cooked. NOT WORTH THE TIME OR MONEY. I would never suggest people come here again, one of the most frustrating experiences I’ve had.

One after thought as well, there is only 1 upstairs restroom area which is in complete disrepair and is poorly cleaned. This area is shared with the party room and the upstairs eating. During our whole event we had random persons walking in and out to use the restroom which disturbed the...