Di Papas Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Florida

Used to go here years ago and it was your typical local OK food Italian restaurant. Decided to check it out again last night with friends. Probably won't be back again. The food I must say is excellent. But we needed to go through 3 waitresses before finding one who could speak at least some English. We asked about wines and she was clueless; had the manager come over who recommend a chianti for $32 a bottle. There is no wine list and wine pricing, bottle or glass, is not listed on the menu. When the bill came we were charged $40 for the wine and the manager's excuse was "Oh, sorry, I made a mistake". Totally unacceptable!! My husband ordered a beer whose price was listed as $5 and we were charged $8. Manager's excuse: "Oh, the price went up after we did the new menus." Totally unacceptable. I ordered a glass of chardonnay and was given a glass of red wine. I explained that is not what I ordered and the waitress started arguing with me! She needed the manager's permission to switch it out. ?? I ordered a dish that came with Italian sausage, lots of veggies, and pasta. Nothing on the menu said anything about it being spicy. I hate spicy food - and I couldn't eat this. I complained that this should have specified the fact that it was spicy, but the manager argued with me telling me "it's not spicy". My husband uses hot sauce on everything and even he couldn't eat this! At one point the waitress was reaching over the bottle of wine on the table and managed to knock it over! The wine spilled all over everything including my husband's pants and my friends' phone. Not even an apology! The bottle was 1/2 full yet the waitress told the manager it was our fault because of where "we" put the bottle although we hadn't touched it once it was placed on the table after the manager poured out two glasses. So we were overcharged for a bottle of wine that mostly ended up wasted. One of our friends ordered dinner and it never came! The waitress again argued with us telling us "she said she didn't want anything" which was ridiculous because that waitress had an entire conversation with our friend about what kind of sauce came on the pasta. Unreal. Then the bill comes where we see the pricing discrepancies along with an up-charge for what they call a "non cash transaction", meaning they charge the customer for their merchant account fees. How cheap can you be?? They already use these bank charges as a tax deduction, they don't need to double dip. When we were paying the bill the manager asked how much we were leaving for a tip and we told him we'd leave cash (because there was no way we were leaving the "suggested" 18%) and he said, "Oh, we don't allow that here." Huh? So my husband said, "Oh, well, we don't put tips on credit cards" and refused to add a tip. All in all, an absolutely...

If you are in the Miami area and want some Italian food or extremely good pizza, consider Di Papas. The food is freshly made, with bold flavors and generous portions. I was so amazed by this spot that I went back two days in a row. Check them out and let me know what you think.

CALAMARI FRITI 9/10 - This fried squid is served with marinara sauce and cooked to perfection. It has that perfect crunch and is well seasoned, but not overly satly.

MOZZARELLA  CAPRESE with PROSCIUTTO 8/10 - This mozzarella, fresh tomates, basil, prosciutto, balsamic vineand italian oil dish is full of flavor and are very tasty together.

CHICKEN MARSALA 10/10 - This chicken breast is sautéed with mushrooms and finished in a dry marsala wine. This main entrée is very impressive. Just with the first bite, I knew I would come back to this restaurant.

CHICKEN PARMIGIANA */10 - This chicken breast is breaded and then topped with sauce and mozzarella. My friend had this dish, so I didn't taste it, but he mentioned it was good. Plus, it seriously looks amazing! I'll try it next time.

MEAT LOVER PIZZA 10/10 – This chef recommended that pizza has tomatoe sauce, mozzarella, sausages, pepperoni, ground beef, bacon, and ham. This is certainly one of the best pizza I've ever had. If you don't get anything else from this place please please come just to try this pizza!!!

LIMONCELLO 10/10 - This is a Limoncello cake with Limoncello ice cream. My favorite cake and flavor is lemon, so this is certainly at 10 out of 10 for me. I will say the chocolate sauce was unnecessary, but everything else was perfect.

TIRAMISU */10 - This is another dish I didn't order, but my friend did. Judging by the way it looked, I'm assuming it was really good.

Restaurant Rating: 94 out of 100% (A-)

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We wanted Italian for dinner and to try a different place. We went here since it was on the SkyMiles Dining program. The restaurant was nice, with two entrances, one for pizza/take outs and one for dine-in restaurant. We sat down and was asked what we wanted to drink, regular water or bottled water. Our waitress came by shortly after and asked if we wanted anything else to drink and if we wanted an appetizer. We order a couple glass of red wine, appetizer as well as the main course.

We had the Burrata with Prosciutto which was good along with the red wine. However, before we finished the appetizer, our main dish came out so we had to set it aside to finish the appetizer. The main dish is served with some lightly buttered garlic bread, not the garlic rolls. I had the Risotto Frutti de Mare. At first sight, it looked very white. When I tasted it it was too garlicky, I mean it was over powering. There were a couple of the pieces of the garlic root in the risotto. The Ravioli de Papas was good. The red sauce with mushrooms and onions, was a bit stringy from the onions. When the waitress asked about the food I told her about how garlicky the risotto was and nothing was done about it.

For the dessert, the Bruele Cheesecake sounded interesting expecting a two layered creme brulee on top of a cheesecake. Instead we got a piece of cheesecake with caramelized sugar, not even a candied shell. There was no creme bruele there and it was way over priced.

Overall the restaurant was nice and the service was good, the food and price was not that great . Note that if you pay with a credit card, there is a non cash adjustment added...