Serafina Italian Restaurant White Plains — Restaurant in City of White Plains

I reserved Serafina for “brunch” on OpenTable. My reservation was made for 11:30am on a Saturday, and when we got to the restaurant, we were told that they don’t “open” until noon. I thought it was odd in the beginning because if the restaurant wasn’t open until noon why would you open a spot on Open Table? But I brushed it off because at least we were seated.

I was there for brunch with a group of girls, however, when we attempted to order, we were told that they were NO LONGER OFFERING THEIR BRUNCH MENU which at that point was still on their website! Our hostess said she could ask the kitchen if they have the ingredients and could make the brunch menu items. I wanted something super simple like their steak and eggs, and my friend had wanted the truffle omelette. We were both told that the kitchen could not make those dishes and that we only had the lunch menu to choose from.

When we finally got our order in, it took a while before the food came out, and from that moment on, that was the LAST time we saw our hostess. The restaurant was not busy at all. We were seated by the kitchen, and around the corner of the restaurant we could only see ONE other table. It was IMPOSSIBLE to get the attention of any serving staff. A table that sat down beside us later on, had to get up TWICE to go hunt down a serving staff to place their order and to see if they could come and collect the plates. We had to call for a server TWICE before we got someone to bring us the check.

The worst of it all? FLIES!!! my friends and I were there for about 3 hours during which we were ATTACKED by flies zipping around us, our food and plates, and we were all constantly swatting them out of our faces and hair. It was AWFUL.

I’ve been to Serafina a bunch of times in NYC, and have never had a more miserable experience. I hope management will take a serious hard look at the restaurant’s operations and hygiene, because this was not an enjoyable...

My family & I walked into Serafina on July 4th about 6:40 pm for dinner. We did not have a reservation, but there were quite a few empty tables so it did not appear to be an issue. The hostess walked us to a table near an empty booth. I asked if we could sit at the booth and with an attitude she responded, "Sorry that table is for 5 people, and we have reservations." Really? Right next to this empty booth was another booth occupied by a family of 4 ( 2 adults & 2 children). My husband and sons are over 6 feet tall & whenever possible we ask for a booth because it is more comfortable. I was taken aback by her response since there were so many empty tables. We have eaten here before and have always had a great experience, including the accommodation of a booth request. Any restaurant is free to refuse a customer a specific table, just as we are free to decide to spend our money at a restaurant that is more accommodating. So we left and walked over to The Columbian House where we had an amazing experience. Quick and friendly service and delicious food. About an hour or so later we finished dinner and walked past Serafina's, and saw the requested booth still empty and a different family of four sitting in the booth that had been occupied when we were there. I won't bother to try to guess why this hostess would behave this way, since clearly the booth went unoccupied and she had no problem sitting other families of four in another booth. But she actually did us a favor, because we really enjoyed our meal at The Colombian House without feeling disrespected!! But she cost the owners money and future business. Shame on the hostess, if she did this to us I'm sure she has done...

In their ads they state "traditional Italian Pasta", so I assumed to eat a real Italian cuisine, that in Italy (my country) is not only food but also a form of art, and like every kind of art it deserves respect. Well, I chose to eat "Bucatini alla Amatriciana", a culinary cult in Rome (and not only in Rome). Actually, I am not sure what kind of awkward attempt of pasta was given to me, but for sure that it was not a real "Amatriciana". Although the pasta per se seemed correctly cooked (but these are really the basis), the sauce was very shoddy for taste and consistency and remembered me a freak discount store's Amatriciana sauce. There was not any flavor of bacon (I was not able to understand if it was used real bacon, that should be "guanciale" to stay close the original recipe) and chili pepper (a mild spicy is essential in the Amatriciana). These considerations were similar for the other two kinds of pasta that I tasted from my companions in culinary-misfortune. If you are not able to prepare properly the Italian recipes and your rubbishy sauce remember a discount market's sauce (for a price that was very high in consideration of the quality of the food), at least for decency you should remove the word “Italian” from the ads of your...