Cuvee 30A — Restaurant in Contiguous United States

We have been traveling to the Emerald Coast for 20 years and the experience we had here was by far the worst. We are very easy going, friendly, non complaining people who always find something to appreciate, but it was difficult during my wife's birthday dinner here.

Timelines: We were seated right away with our early reservation then promptly ignored for the next 10 minutes. No menus. No water. No acknowledgement. We finally got menus and a bottle of water then waited another 15 minutes for any further contact as we say there with our menus closed. We had a great time talking together but were astonished at slow the service was especially before the evening rush. We looked around and weren't too alarmed at this point since everyone else was in the same boat. We joked that it felt like we were in France.

Service: Quite honestly, after we interacted with our waiter a little more (and as I have read other reviews) we determined he was the culprit for everything. This also says something about the culture or absenteeism of the owner or someone who cares. Really poor attitude. Slovenly, stringy, inappropriate facial hair. Plopped down everything on the table with barely a word. When he did speak, his Asian accent was so strong we barely understood a word he said. His overall persona made us feel like every interaction was a complete bother. We were kind to him in the few appearances at our table, but this guy is personally responsible for my taking the time to leave this review as I can see he is also responsible for many other low reviews as well. The owner would be prudent to let this guy go. A breakfast cafe is where you might expect a waiter like this not at a fine dining establishment.

Portion Size: My wife and I are not big people and are not big eaters but I left there still hungry after 1 tiny peice of complimentary bread and olive oil/herbs, a salad that would fit on a saucer, and the main entree, seared tuna, which 4 slices about the size of a thick band-aid. My wife's main entree was the pecan grouper which she shared with me because it was closer to a normal portion.

Food Quality: The taste of the food was good to me (my wife thought her grouper was bland) after it finally came out and was almost dropped on the table, but the whole experience was tarnished by the other factors.

Pricing: We live in Dallas and are familiar with many fine dining restaurants and have always felt that we could expect to pay slightly more on 30A due to the beach location. Our meal for two cost a little more than $150. This is way overpriced for the atmosphere, the quality of the wait staff, the efficiency of the restaurant and even if all of these things were excellent, the portion and quality is the food does not command these prices.

I would pass on this place. There are so many other amazing places to eat on 30A. My prediction is this review won't matter after another season as this place...

I will start by saying, kudos to the Chef for properly regulating a situation.

Part 1: Do not order the chicken, it’s terrible.However the larger disappointment was the manage. (Especially the one who kept laughing We flew in from Texas. For a bachelorette party. I booked this reservation several months in advance! We sat down at 8:15 PM. After about 20 mins we were met by a young waitress who was polite but was a tad bit slow on portions of the service. Including but not limited to water. After about 30 mins in, we finally have water but still awaited a drink menu as well as appetizer service.

Let’s start with the bread service, we were handed 2 small crostini pieces of bread. Calling that a service leaves very little to the imagination. At this point, we’ve fully decided on what we wanted based on what was presented to us. We place our orders accordingly, as we start to chit chat snap photos and attempt to enjoy our experience. A plate was delivered to a guest next to our table that we failed to recognize from the menu. This is where, mediocre turned into terrible. We request our waitress walk over to ask her about the item, “sliders” which we were advised are on the “bar menu”. The guest that was sitting next to us, was at a table; not necessarily the bar so why were they presented with a completely different menu? Then we were told “well it’s normally only offered during happy hour” which would be fine if it weren’t 9 pm and Happy Hour was over well before that.

3 guests in my party expressed their displeasure with the fact that they were not greeted with the same menu opportunities as our neighbors. Are these people regulars? Is there a secret menu we should indeed know about? Remember I said mediocre was gonna get worse; well buckle your seatbelt. All of the ladies who ordered chicken would have preferred the slider option, and felt it was unfair to not have received it.

The waitress who MAY have been frustrated goes and gets her manager who basically explains well.. “sorry you ordered off the dinner menu and sorry you didn’t ask for the bar menu.. you get what you get” although those many not be her exact words her slight snicker and eye roll was enough to cause tension and more frustration. After she states “That’s just not how the food industry works, so you will have to get what you originally ordered it takes over 40 minutes to prepare our chicken dish”. At that time, the manager walks off, and the young waitress returns. We are about 1hr 15 mins in and she is hand delivering our alcoholic beverages at this time. As to which one of our guests refused her drink, and stated she would also refuse her food as she now isn’t getting what she wants from this experience. The waitress excuses herself and returns with an exception for ONE of THREE guests who would have preferred...

The food was very tasty, though this is definitely a $40+ per person restaurant.

Our big frustration (and the reason I'm leaving only 4 stars) is that: We specifically arranged a reservation for my brother's wedding rehearsal dinner after confirming that they could accommodate our special dietary needs.

Multiple people in our family are vegan and vegetarian and we specifically picked this place because the owner (who was communicating directly with our wedding planner) said they would make a special menu to accommodate our party-- yet when we got there, not only did they not have the special menu (and the employees working didn't even know about our request)-- they also didn't have anything on the menu that was vegan (even the vegetarian pasta was made with eggs, making it not vegan and therefore not viable).

So they had one viable vegetarian option, but no vegan options, and the entire reason we chose this restaurant was because they promised they would make special arrangements to accommodate us. We had all of this original correspondence in texts between our wedding planner and the restaurant, so it is extremely frustrating that they didn't do what they'd said they would do (if we'd known, we would have just picked a different restaurant, given the bride is vegan).

That being said, they (after much back and forth) eventually came up with a vegan option for my brother's wife (riced cauliflower with veggies). It seemed to be a really ridiculous situation, but I appreciate that they at least came up with a way to accommodate.

Their regular dishes were very good-- I enjoyed the grouper and my husband had the venison -- the tuna was really good (according to my other sister-in-law) and and my other brother enjoyed his pesto pasta ("pretty decent" are his exact words).

In typical high end restaurant style, the portions were pretty small. We had midnight snacks to accommodate at home.

Our beginning impressions were less than stellar, but at least they made an effort to make it better by coming up with a vegan option on the fly and not adding the gratuity automatically for our party of 12.

If they hadn't made false promises about being able to accommodate us, and if we didn't have any special dietary needs, then this would have been a five-star restaurant, good for fancy expensive small plates.

However if you are vegan, look elsewhere. This is not the place you want to visit, even if they tell you they will accommodate you before hand.

I hope this experience leads to some better training for whoever dropped the ball and didn't communicate with the people working at...