1285 Restobar — Restaurant in Florence

So my husband and I are all excited to get back to Florence and go to the 1285 Restobar that we had gone to 3 years earlier when we visited the area. We get there an hour earlier from our reservation so that we can have a cocktail at the bar. That all went terrific. We got seated and proceeded to order a personal size pizza to split for an appetizer. It was good. Then our meals arrived.  At this point things went downhill.  My hubby got the lamb shank osso bucco style and I ordered the crab filled ravioli with a lobster cream sauce. That's exactly how it reads on the menu. So imagine if you will,  how you would picture this dish in your mind. I was thinking of a plate of ravioli with a beautiful creamy pink lobster sauce on it. Well, it arrived in a casserole dish that had been baked in the oven covered with thick cheese melted over the top. No place on the menu did it mention it would arrive that way. I took my fork to it and lifted the cheese up to find plain white raviolis with no notable sauce to be found anywhere! This was not at all what I was expecting and if I had known, I would not have ordered it. I tried a taste and it was very blah. Meanwhile my husband is sitting there with this very unpleasant look on his face and said to me; you won't believe this but mine tastes strange. I'm like really? He says to have a taste. He was right, it didn't taste anything close to osso bucco...it tasted sweet with some unusual flavor we couldn't put a finger on. Plus the meat was stringy and tough! Very offputting. So we tell the waitress who was went to the chef who in turn came out to speak to us with a huge attitude asking what was wrong. We explained exactly as I did here. You can see in his eyes he wanted to tell us off he was so mad. They made us feel so uncomfortable for not liking the food they presented. I'm sorry but that dinner was odd and awful. We left hungry. So my advise if you go, ask for more details on how the dish is constructed and served. As far as the osso bucco...not recommended. I added a picture of what was supposed to the crab ravioli with lobster cream sauce. Ummm...do you see raviolis or cream sauce?!?!?

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We always eat here when we go to Florence typically. Every couple months so 5-6 times a year. It's a drive for us anyways the last 2 times the service has been very upsetting on both occasions they forgot a entire large pizza wich was for the kids so we recieved ours and they didn't have there's along with a long waite time wich we wouldn't have minded but since we couldn't eat cause the kids couldn't eat it was frustrating! They then made the pizza by then me and my husband had eaten and it just was very frustrating! 2nd time most recent last weekend we waited about 40min for food when it arrived my entire plate never came our pizza came so I ate that I finally asked about my plate and they said they don't know what happened . They made it to go free of charge. They did try to make it right but I then asked for the check it took another 30min to get the dang check meanwhile table next to me got someone's else's order and sent it back once they finally got ahold of someone maybe 20min later . Another table near by had waited the same 30min to get and pay there bill as well . We drove up to watch the sunset and it took 2 hrs for dinner and we missed the sunset by minutes !! We tried to even run to the beach I've been able to get in and out of restaurants in less then 2 hrs before especially going in knowing my order ahead of time . I don't know what's going on with this place but I also understand finding good help is hard all waiters were polite and friendly no issues there although one women had a black mini skirt on and bent over right in front of out table exposing her whole rear !! All the men were excited in the room. I felt it was very distasteful and inappropriate to be wearing something you can appropriately move in a family setting in working but to each there own. She wasn't my waiter so I had no other interactions with her but the gentleman who helped seemed to be a bit overwhelmed maybe only reason I can think of all these issues happening . I hope they can get more help or more focused staff . The food is always amazing and the drinks are...

The restaurant has a warm feel to it. The various pieces of art throughout the establishment are nice to look at. The staff are friendly and the service is good.

I think the next time I visit Florence I will return and try a more traditional Italian dish.

I ordered the Florentine Clam Chowder and it was unbelievably good. I grew up on Manhattan Clam Chowder, but always enjoyed a good bowl of New England Clam Chowder. This is creamy like New England with a little bit of spice. I don't mean hot spice, I mean I've never had anything like this it's delicious spice!

I also ordered the NY steak with veggies and garlic mash. Being Italian and having an allergy to garlic is a bit of a cosmic joke. So, I try to avoid my garlic intake, or at least limit it. Instead of the garlic mash I subbed the chowder and paid extra for crab on top of the steak.

The presentation was pretty sloppy it was like everything had slid around on the plate before I got it. The squash was good and cooked just enough leaving a little bit of snap to the vegetable. The crab was shredded, dry and tasted a little well, a lot fishy... not like crab, The steak I ordered medium rare. When I cut into it, it had quite a bit of gristle and fat on the edges, and was tough. I needed to cut quite a bit off in order to get to the medium rare portion of the steak. I put some of the clam chowder on the crab and steak as gravy and it definitely made a difference.

Here's the twist to the steak review! The steak was not that great in the restaurant, but I took it to go anyway and let it rest for a bit. It was so much better when I went to finish it. The steak needed to rest a little longer before being plated. It was a 12oz cut and a chef needs a strong handle on the art of cooking a steak if they're going to serve one.

Overall I'd try another dish at this restaurant again. I feel like I ordered a dish that wasn't their most ordered item. Every restaurant has one or two. I would definitely order the...