Vincenzo Cucina Italiana — Restaurant in Dr. Phillips

Since the email address for the restaurant is no longer in service, I'll just go ahead and paste it right here:

Good afternoon Vincenzo Cucina Italiana Management,

I am writing to express my extreme disappointment with the service and food quality I experienced at your restaurant on April 3rd at 6:30pm.

My friends and I made a reservation for a birthday dinner and while we were promptly seated, everything else fell very, very short. Our server, while very kind, was sort of a space cadet and inattentive, sometimes only refilling drinks or answering questions for one side of the table. Several members of our dinner party had to ask multiple times for drink refills.

Our server would not allow us to put in our order until the last member of our party arrived even though we were ready to give the server her order as well since she wasn't there.

Bread service usually comes out BEFORE the meal and it took awhile for him to bring that out for us to enjoy. When the bread basket finally arrived, we were told our entrees would be out shortly. Well, shortly was not the correct term to describe when our meal came out. We ordered our meal at 7pm. Our entrees arrived more than an hour and a half later! An HOUR AND A HALF! I have NEVER been to a restaurant that took that long to bring out entrees. Yes, the restaurant was busy, but other tables that had just as many people in their party as we did received their food before us. When we asked our server what was taking so long, he replied that the "kitchen was overwhelmed and didn't do well under pressure". Sounds like you may need to re-train your kitchen staff. Once our entrees arrived, we immediately asked for our checks as we figured it would take just as long for those to arrive at our table. No surprise...it took almost 15 minutes for the server to bring our checks.

Furthermore, the food itself was unfortunately not up to par. A few people ordered espresso martinis that were clearly watered down and not made properly. One member of our party had overcooked pasta and when she brought this to the attention of the manager, the manager started to argue with her! Managers are supposed to give the diner the benefit of the doubt and not argue with the customer. Very classless. I ordered the lasagna and it tasted like it came out of a can of Chef Boyardee ravioli and was oversalted. My food sat on my plate and our server never once came over to ask if my meal was okay. If he had, I would have asked him to take it back to the kitchen as it was not edible.

Given the supposed reputation of Vincenzo Cucina Italiana, this experience fell far short of my expectations.

I would appreciate it if you could look into this matter and consider offering some compensation for the inconvenience caused.

Per the refund policy located on your website:

Refund Policy Vincenzo Cucina Italiana is very proud of our food quality, freshness and made to order dishes. We value your feedback. In the case of problems with your order, please contact us directly by calling us directly and we will try to correct the problem to your satisfaction as quickly as possible. If you receive an incorrect order we will offer to correct your food order. If this is not acceptable, you may be issued a full refund; if part of your order is missing, we may issue a partial refund. We strive to continuously do our best to ensure your satisfaction. By ordering from our website you are agreeing to our refund policy.

Thank you for your time and attention to this complaint.

If I could give negative stars to this restaurant, I would. There are so many other Italian restaurant options in Orlando, please...

We stopped by without a reservation and we're happy that the host (who was also working as our server) was able to seat us outside immediately with no wait.

We ordered a dirty Tito's martini (not too dirty) and an Aperol Spritz (which they had advertised in a neon sign above their bar, so sounded like a house specialty). The dirty martini had zero olive juice in it (they clearly forgot it), but what was odd is that it tasted mostly like water, as if they were watering down the liquor. I felt nothing off of the drink, on an empty stomach, so it was clearly watered down, if not mostly water. That was really disturbing. I hope someone looks into this bottles / procedures.

The Aperol Spritz was served in a glass that had lipstick marks all around the rim (gross!!). We didn't see the waiter again for a long time and had a straw, so my wife tried it anyway. It tasted so badly that she only drank 1/3 of it, and then said she'd switch over to wine. I said I would too, joking that my cup of water (martini) had grown warm. We were charged $17 for the Martini and $16 for the Spritz. Yikes! When we finally saw our server again to order some wine, we told him what we liked and he was able to offer some suggestions. He clearly knew his stuff. The Chianti I had was excellent as was my wife's Sauvignon Blanc.

We asked for bread twice (when we were able to flag down our server), and he said he'd be right back with it. Our meal came and went, and still no bread. We had lobster ravioli and a shellfish dish. Both were excellent! They do food very well, which is great!

The server brought out meals and then quickly left a bowl of grated cheese next to us, saying to us "i'll leave this right here". It seemed like a lot of cheese. I threw some on my fish dish a few times and enjoyed it. Then, he stopped by, grabbed the dish and went and put it on another table! :o :o :o I don't know what the "food rules" are, but that seems totally gross! I hope I don't get sick from the communal cheese dish. Covid-infused parmesan, yuck!

When we asked for our check, he brought it and then we got a somewhat of an apology, saying that they were very busy tonight and he was working as a server and the host. We hadn't said anything at that point and were smiling as we were engaged with ourselves in conversation, but he was a smart guy. He knew we didn't have a remotely acceptable experience. I mentioned that bread again, saying I would've loved to have had it for the sauce with the dinner. He could have offered to give it to us to-go, or something. I mean, we did pay for it. That cost is rolled into our meals. Plus, they charge $9 if you'd like their bread to-go which they put on the menu, so I suspected it was tasty! I tried to help them on my way out after we'd paid, by going to the host stand, but there was no one anywhere in sight.

We paid $144 for a $50 meal. The drinks were overpriced and they underdelivered on them (something shady with their vodka).

The food was very good, but between the lipstick and communal cheese, that's some kind of dirty and lack of care for the customers that I can't tolerate. I recommend you...

Me and a friend of mine had just finished up our day from Universal Studios, and wanted to get some Italian to eat. Originally we were going to head to Carrabbas, as we got to the parking lot and saw this place saw that there was no wait and parking was free thought let’s give it a try. As we got seated you could hear the Italian music that they were playing it wasn’t too loud but loud enough to be heard. Inside the restaurant was well designed on the inside and you can tell this is a family owned restaurant by the way it looks.

The food was amazing we felt like it was way better than going over to the Carrabbas that was across the street. When the bread came out we tore it in half and immediately you can tell the bread was home made by the way crunch sounds. I don’t use olive oil on my bread but my friend did and it said it was amazing. The bread reminded me of a family owned Italian shop back in Lakeland called Place Pizza.

When we got to our food that we had ordered, it came out in a very timely manner. I had ordered the Pappardelle con vitello alla boscaiola, the presentation was very well done for the dish being able to see all the elements that consisted in the dish. The sauce was perfect there is nothing I would change about it and the sauce didn’t break while I was eating the dish. I had also saved some bread to use to scoop the remaining sauce that I had on the plate it was to die for.

My friend had ordered the Pappardelle con vitello alla boscaiola. The presentation of the dish was great the only thing that doesn’t make it a perfect presentation is there were a few splash spots of sauce that could have been wiped away and a onion slice that could have been placed a bit better. Now the taste of this dish was spot on and is what you would expect when you order this dish. We had also ordered the tiramisu, and I don’t order this very often but I thought but this one was perfect.

I will say this as finally words this is a place that needs to be put on the map for places to eat in Orlando it is amazing and will be coming here more often. To the owner and chef please don’t change your ways with how your food is made, find ways to elevate the dish’s while keeping the same flavors and method of...