Cesare At the Beach — Restaurant in Clearwater

My wife and I ate at this restaurant on a Saturday night a couple weeks ago. The place was busy, but not packed. The hostess was not pleasant when receiving us, but we waited the 30 minutes to be seated, looking forward to an excellent Italian meal. Wow, were we disappointed!

Bread with oil and herbs: Bread was hard as a rock and the oil had only the slightest hint of basil. No flavor. Blah...

Bruschetta: The tomatoes were fresh and at least there was some flavor to this dish, but not enough to justify the the high price.

Calamari: How can you screw up Calamari? I mean, it was breaded and fried as it should be, but again, there was no flavor in the breading and the "house made" marinara sauce was more bland than a can of Hunts tomato sauce

Veal Marsala: This was probably the biggest disappointment of the night. My expensive entree came after a significant wait time. I was just about to go ask if they had forgotten us...when our waiter brought our meal. My plate had four strips of veal (the size, thickness and shape were similar to strips of Gyro meat). The Marsala sauce was the worst insult to Italian cuisine in history. It was literally mushroom gravy like the McCormick's brand packets you can buy at the grocery store. I ordered fettuccine with their pink sauce as my side. It tasted like someone poured 2% milk into the already bland "house marinara". 100% disappointed.

Veal Piccata: My wife ordered this entree. It had the same 4 gyro meat like slices of veal, bathed in their lemon butter sauce and capers. Although we tried, we could not taste any butter, or any lemon or any capers? There was literally no taste to this meal! Her side dish was regular spaghetti and sauce. This was the best thing presented to us, after copious amounts of Parmesan cheese were added.

Kids chicken fingers: These were passable as food but there is not much more to say..

The wine list is mediocre and overpriced, like everything else on the menu, so we stuck to water for us and soft drinks for the kids.

My bill was more than $140.00 for the worst meal I have had in a very long time.

By the way, our waiter was attentive and did as well as could...

If you are in the mood for an Italian dish in an intimate setting, Cesare at the Beach is definitely the place for you. The restaurant is hidden away from the noise of the central parts of Clearwater Beach, and offers a variance of fine wines to pair alongside your meal.

My partner and I first noticed that the views of the location were not the best-- the dining area has a wrap-around porch for outdoor seating, and windows that also wrap around the interior walls for an outside view. What you will see is the main bridge into Clearwater Beach, as well as a few construction sites.

The restaurant itself has quite the sophisticated interior. There are booth and table options, and we opted for the booth. The menu needs a bit of an update, as it looked as though someone had opened Microsoft Word and just typed away, and then slipped the final product into a binder.

Our server was very rushed. With the price we were paying, I expected much better service. I had made the reservation for my partner and I, and requested a surprise dessert dish with a candle toward the end of our meal.

The appetizer was the best part (in my opinion) of our entire dining experience. It was a bruschetta with diced tomatoes and cheese, paired with two fresh bread halves and an herb oil for dipping. I ordered a mushroom dish that I wasn't quite happy with, but I didn't send it back because I am too polite. My partner ordered the penne a la vodka, and was quite pleased with the taste.

I requested a box for my meal, and our server took both of the plates-- even though my partner had yet to finish eating. He came back a moment with the tiramisu I had requested over the phone. The server quickly apologized, saying they had 'just run out of candles', and then hastily wished my partner a happy birthday before running away. I ordered a coffee to close out the dinner (delicious brew, I must note), and then received our check. We tipped nicely and were on our way.

We don't feel we will be coming back to this...

So my wife and I were trying to celebrate our 10th anniversary and were told by numerous friends and family members that this place is absolutely amazing . So we booked a reservation around 6:30 pm last Saturday. Our server brought us our drinks and took our orders. We waited around 45 minutes to an hour before asking one of the other servers about where our food was. We were told they will be back shortly to make sure everything's going well. Then another 35 - 40 minutes past and no sign of them. We were literally watching tables being sat a second time after people who got there before us had left happy and satisfied. So then i was started to get pretty impatient and decided to go and ask the host where our waiter was and they said they don't know and then i politely asked to speak to the manager running things that night. Let me tell you when i say i have no idea how she became a manager. She walked over to our table making somewhat loud enough foot steps which i assumed was just her being passive aggressive and greeted me and my wife with an incredible amount of hostility. I managed to hold back my anger and politely said we havent seen our server for an extrodinary amount of time at this point. She then began to come up with some really uncreative explanations that I knew were fake from my days of being a server when i was younger. Waited five minutes i gues i mentally broke her by saying i dont wantto here any more of her lame reasons i just want me and my wife to have some food. After i said that she started to yell at us saying how we are not showing her any respect. Out of the blue slammed her hamd on the table insulting me and my wife and me and my wife just got up and left. Never wrote a review before but i feel like this woman is soo incompetent of running things who ever her superior is needs to hear this. Hopefully he does cause no one wwho goes to a five star restaurant on the beach deserves this. This is by far and completely ruined our...