DeLukas Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in Clearwater

I've never been to Croatia but this was our opportunity to experience the hospitality, food, drinks and ambiance! We were excited to come here for an early Friday dinner as I got off work at 4:30!

The exterior is graced with spectacular photos of Croatia. Beautiful does not describe it well enough! Check them out before you come inside! Once in, we saw a spacious, clean and inviting restaurant with an open kitchen and a bar area to the left.

We were greeted and chose a table rather than one of the massive booths. Our waiter, Nenad, let us take our time and ask questions but was always available when needed.

Our first selection was Croatian charcuterie... I had been looking forward to this as I've had charcuterie in neighboring Slovenia many times and it's always fantastic. We were not disappointed! An amazing generous presentation with fresh fruit, walnuts and pistachios, olives, cheese and preserved meats. Like elsewhere east of Italy, the prosciutto is cut thicker than in Italy but it's is the style and tradition. The plate it came on had a drawer with utensils and was quite unique. The meats, beyond prosciutto included Kulen sausage, beef sausage and pork neck prosciutto.

As for drinks, I stuck with water but my wonderful wife had a glass of Croatian Palasas red wine that was quite tasty. More fruity than acidic, it was well balanced and very drinkable. It's what Z, the kind host, recommended to us when he introduced himself and we chatted.

For mains, we shared the goulash plus a cevapi and sudjukice sausage and fresh bread plate. The goulash was a well seasoned and hearty stew served with homemade mashed potatoes. The authentic grilled sausages and bread came with sour cream and onions. Both sausages were very tasty and unique. We'd definitely order that again!

We shared our meals, chatted and just enjoyed the experience. We spoke to Z a bit more and learned he had a variety of Croatian liquor and wine available. We asked him what Croatian liquor was like and he enthusiastically explained regarding their unique walnut liquor as well as plum liquor.

We got our huge amount of leftovers to go, saving every morsel for future meals! Then, Z graciously surprised us with two generous shots of walnut liquor!!!!

I very rarely drink these days but we absolutely had to try it. Try we did and wow! Unique! Not overly sweet! Delicious! Spectacular! Z also expressed that it is healthy! What an amazing after drink experience combined with gracious hospitality! Thank you Z!

Life is very good when you try something new and are transported from a clearly improving area of east downtown Clearwater to Croatia! We like this neighborhood for the local ethnic...

This is a restaurant that I have looked to visit/dine at for over a year. Last night had an opportunity to dine there for a friends birthday. In advance of my review, which won't be pretty, I will say this, I think it was an off night for the restaurant and would consider giving it another try. To start, arrived on time and we were seated with 5-10 minutes, terrible table location behind a bubble glass water feature blocking the view to the restaurant, I am also handicapped and was using cutches last night, the staff did not consider my mobility issues and sat us at the most difficult table for me to sit down at due to limited walk space, tables and chairs had to be moved for me to sit down. Let's move onto service, our server Ted seemed overwhelmed and "in the weeds" throughout our dining visit. Unattentive, didn't check on us much through our meal so we had to ask other other servers for water refills, silverware, etc. My opinion, servers had too many tables which were spread to all corners of the restaurant. Food: fair at best, very disappointing. Started with fried calamari, seemed frozen out of a box, chewy & tuff and tasteless. Shrimp and Scallops in a garlic herb sauce, sauce was tasty, shrimp were OK, scallops overcooked and rubbery. Dinner, I requested the lamb shank, at 6:30 they were "out", so I ordered the pork shank. It was tender fall off the bone, but tasteless with a watery attempt at a broth at the bottom of the bowl vessel, had to request another brown sauce to get some taste to it, sauce was over salted. Others had the rack of lamb, lamb was overcooked (requested medium-rare, came medium well) and not seasoned very well. Another had the stuffed pepper and shrimp cocktail, she only ate 3 bites of the pepper saying it was dry. Our 4th guest had the Veal schnitzel, saying it was dry and chewy. Overall experience was not good at all, from service to food. Restaurant itself is charming with nice decor and a good vibe. Unfortunately, the rest of the experience didn't live up to our expectations and match all the great reviews. As I said early, perhaps a bad night, all restaurants have them. I waited a year to try DeLukas, very let down, perhaps I'll try again during a weekday when they aren't that busy and the kitchen can take their time preparing the food and the service is not overwhelmed with so...

Valentine's dinner was a disaster. We have been here several times and it was always very good. Tonight was awful. I made a reservation for 2 atleast 4-5 weeks ahead. It was surprising that A credit card was required to even make a reservation. I come from a restaurant family in NY in business for 74 years. I understand card holds for very high end buffets as you have to have some type of a head count for purchasing based on offerings and average portions, but that was not the issue. I did make a request for table for 2 in the main dining room. Nothing was available except a table (the last table before the bathrooms.) when we arrived. We were told nothing else was available It was a very busy hallway people passing by at arms length to use the restroom. I could see inside the men's room every time the door opened . Even that was not the problem. It was immediately obvious that 3 people were hosting, waiting and serving for a packed house. We never received our salads and people who came in about 1/2 hour after us were done with appetizers, salads and had their entrees. Our server delivered our entrees about 40 minutes in. I reminded her my salad never came out but I still wanted it. It still never arrived and she never once came back to the table for drinks. desert, or anything else. After getting tired of waiting we just got up and went to the hostess desk to ask for our bill. I would have much preferred they cancelled the reservation (s) due to uncontrollable circumstances such as no help. We spent 70 bucks when it could have been 115.00+ if we had salads, drinks and deserts. A total waste of time and money not to mention ruined a "holiday" albeit a silly one at best , I will refer to the evening as the Fl Saint Valentine's Day Massacre for those of you familiar with the famous mobster event in Chicago many years ago. Being from NY I couldn't resist coining the disaster evening with that. But keep in mind. what food we did...