Z Cucina di Spirito — Restaurant in Columbus

Overall a good experience, but I expect something was up with our waiter. Husband and I went for our anniversary; it was about 7:30 on a Tuesday night and the restaurant was active but not busy. We were seated very promptly by the owner despite not having reservations (it was, after all, a Tuesday). But then we didn't see the waiter for about ten minutes. Someone stopped by and poured us water, still no waiter. Then the waiter popped by and told us he'd be right with us. Waited some more. When he did finally pay us some attention, he didn't read/explain the specials, nor bring us bread. He or the bar got my husband's cocktail order wrong (husband liked the wrong cocktail so we didn't say anything, but on top of everything else...) The waiter was fine after that but when I'm paying for a special occasion date, I'd like to receive our drinks before we had sat there for twenty minutes, our entrees a hour after we're seated, and to not have to ask for bread. The restaurant was not terribly busy and there were other waiters there. A table seated at the same time as us (of three older people) had several visits from their waiter by the time we got to meet ours. Maybe the waiter had another demanding table or maybe we were being ignored because we were a young couple (and therefore more likely to be cheap). I don't know. I just did NOT expect this after the repeated glowing reviews of the service. By far not the worst service I've experienced, but not appropriate for the price of the restaurant. Are my expectations too high, or something?

That said, the food was delicious, they split entrees for us very nicely, and the experience was overall good. The atmosphere was very pleasant, romantic yet upbeat. We got the appetizer taster plate, which was fantastic and a fun variety of different flavors and textures. We will be back, but only because I expect that our service this last time was a anomaly and...

Appetizers were the highlights for me! The soup was complex in flavor, but simply put delicious. It was a creamy, butternut squash soup with notes of tomato and carrot. The bread with the ricotta and fig and balsamic complimented well, my only note would be that the portion of the fig was a lot compared to the four pieces of bread provided. The stuffed Parmesan risotto fritters, were my absolute favorite, with a slight note of spicy that added to the variety of the appetizers and m as de them all compliment one another seamlessly. We had a warm apple cider drink which tasted like apple pie and a caramel macchiato cocktail which was equally as tasty if you are a coffee lover and a fan of Baileys! It’s worth noting that the house bread they bring you (not pictured) is addictive. They’re small, proportionate bites in oil and sun-dried tomatoes, the bread is soft with a bit of an outer crunch and by far the best complimentary bread I have ever had. For our main course we chose the butternut squash ravioli, which like many of the other dishes was quite sweet. I assume that the chef enjoys balancing savory and sweet in his dishes, my only note was this dish was underwhelming due to the intensity of the sweetness and the fact that our appetizers were reminiscent of some of the same sweetness. We decided to get a dessert and found those to be unfortunately a miss. The bread pudding was undercooked, albeit tasty and the cannolis were heavy handed on the orange zest. Overall, the patio atmosphere was nice and warm, the server was informative and we took our time talking and enjoying our dishes. I would...

I'm super disappointed to,discover there is not consistency in this place. I went in October had fabulous short ribs, yummy butternut squash soup and amazing tiramasu- Expensive for,sure but the food quality was amazing. I've been bragging about how wonderful this place was for a couple months now then went back this past Friday with a vegetarian, he had a salad which was salty, when we asked the server why the salad would be salty he had no idea, didn't apologize, say he would check on it or anything, he just had no idea and took the salad away, which had barely been touched. I had the vegetarian gnocchi which was good, nothing spectacular but totally edible. Then we got,the tiramasu, it was terrible - we each had 2 bites (it was our main reason for coming and we told the server that) it was totally different than the last one I had there. It was heavy and Not fresh. The first one I had in October looked like they topped it with fresh whipped cream and shaved chocolate right before it came out, this one was Definetly wrapped tightly with saran wrap before it came out and was put on a plate drizzled with Carmel, seriously, who adds Carmel to tiramasu and there was NO coffee or liquor taste to the lady fingers, it was bland and heavy, not at all light like the one in October, I asked the hostess if there was a new chef, she said No same one for 6mths. So disappointing, I'm sorry to say I no longer recommend this place. (The owner did have me back as his guest and assured me that was not the norm, I did have a nice meal and excellent service...