Rambling Rose — Restaurant in Florence

First, the good: Cute atmosphere, polite service, and a menu with a nice variety of promising items. Now, the bad: Quality and quantity should be much better for the prices charged. The Seafood Pasta claimed to have "A medley of scallops, prawns, cod, clams and mussles tossed in our house cream sauce over linguini." In reality it was a small bowl of pasta with ONE scallop, ONE shrimp, a very small morsel of cod, and a couple mussles and clams. For $35 I expected a lot more. One member of our group ordered an elk burger, but they were all out of elk. The salads were very simple and bland with and did not have housemade croutons as the menu claimed, nor did they have mixed greens as claimed (only romaine). The chicken ordered as the add-on for the salad was just a handfull of some shredded chicken pieces like from a rotisserie chicken you'd get from the grocery store, and served on a small plate in the side. Normally I would expect a grilled or fried chicken breast like most restaurants serve. We really wanted to like this place as we'd love to have a new restaurant in town that we could frequent and the menu sounded nice. Unfortunately, the dishes don't live up to the hype, and the quality and quantity are severely lacking considering the...

We were a group of 6. Iced tea was good, wine was good, sprite came out as club soda, coke was flat. Ordered our food at the same time as our drinks, because it had already been a long time. Then a half hour pasted and was informed that one dish couldn't come with mashed potatoes. Then another half hour passed and we're then informed that our ticket was next and there is one chef, and it'll be another 20 minutes. We were then offered a free bowl of clam chowder, the BEST part of dinner. Very good chowder, clam in every bite, lots of little bits of stuff through out. Food came out, the two noodle dishes were good, could of used more seasoning on the chicken. The three fish and chips plate were DRY AND OVERCOOKED. French fries, good seasoning, one plate fresh, other cold and old. And two of them should of been Salmon, but they all came as cod. Salads were great, good vinegrette. The grilled chicken plate was seasoned well, but too small of amount. They are new, but they could of have warned us on the lack of kitchen staff, sooner than hour. They could of discounted our bill when we told them they got it wrong and it was burned and dry. They really should of been up front from the getgo. Simple to let us know what...

I really wanted to like Rambling Rose because the atmosphere is charming and the space itself is beautiful—it gives the impression you’re in for a special experience. Unfortunately, the looks are where the positives end. The service was painfully slow, disorganized, and indifferent. We were seated quickly, but it felt like we were forgotten about almost immediately after. Getting water refills or even basic attention from the staff was a struggle, and when we did flag someone down, the responses were curt at best.

The food was an even bigger disappointment. With a menu that reads like it should deliver something memorable, what we received was bland, overpriced, and poorly executed. My dish arrived lukewarm, and what should have been fresh and flavorful tasted like it had been sitting under a heat lamp. The portions didn’t match the price point either, which only added to the frustration.

It’s frustrating when a place puts so much effort into appearances but can’t back it up with quality service or food. Rambling Rose looks like it should be a hidden gem, but in reality, it’s all style and no substance. Definitely not somewhere I’d recommend...