Italian Food Company — Restaurant in Florida

We had 7 local diners in our group on a Friday night in January and we sat indoors so our food would not be cold. Comments on quality of the food: The 3 dishes that our group would order again were the calabrian bang bang shrimp appetizer (due to the large size and you get about 7 of them), any of the pizzas which had a crispy foccacia style crust that has great flavor, and the Bolognese with rich, hearty flavor.

The other dishes that were just O.K. and not memorable and would not be reordered if we returned were: Chicken parmesan (too much breading and overcooked, tough chicken) Agnolotti pasta (heavy pasta dough with so little filling that the spinach and ricotta was not detected) Shrimp Fra Diavolo (ordinary, and worthy of the $28.00 price) Ahi Tuna Poke (slices of tuna with a sweet sauce and no spicy condiment) Wedge Salad was huge, but stingy with the topping. Instead of 2 iceberg wedges. How about one wedge with more blue cheese crumbles, bacon and tomatoes.

Comments on Service: The overall consensus from our group was that the food overall was good, but the service was HORRIBLE for all the following reasons: 1-Waiter never but my dinner in to kitchen, so I never got my meal. I never got an apology, nor did they offer to any other item on our ticket to mitigate the gross negligence. 2- Waiter was overwhelmed, in the weeds, and unable to provide timely delivery of drinks or food. 3- Kitchen staff unable to time cooking dishes so that one tables food order comes out together so diners can eat together. Appetizers were coming out with dinner entrees and some diners dishes were coming out 10 to 15 minutes apart. 4- Drinks were delivered to table that were not ordered, and bar drinks were delivered randomly.

I talked to a friend who dined there as a group of 4 at 6 pm on a Sunday. They had the same waiter and the same terrible service, so this review on bad service is not mine alone.

I will try this location one more time and request a different waiter and try some of other dinner options they offer. Stay tuned for a second review as I am hoping they can streamline the service and improve/replace some of the ordinary/meh dishes on the menu.

RECOMMENDATION: Don't most italians serve bread with saucy dishes to mop up the gravy. At these high prices for pasta and sauce, a piece of crusty focaccia would...

This is definitely a mixed review, so I’ll start off on the high note. The food is AMAZING. We had pizzas, pastas, salads, and cheesecake, and loved all of it! Very very good food. Had it been a review for the food only, it would be a GLOWING five star review. The kitchen knows what they’re doing and the recipes/ingredients are amazing. What KILLED this experience for us, was the service and the manager. We had 6:30 reservations, and by 8 o’clock we were walking INTO the kitchen to ask where our food was - as we had watched three tables around us turn, reseat, order, and finish their food and box it before ours had even come out. One of our party ordered a pizza, and it came out 30 minutes before the rest of the entrees. When we were finally able to track down our waitress, she got the manager, and the manager was extremely dismissive. Did not offer any sort of real apology or solution and was super off putting. She told us we “needed to understand” that the kitchen was slow, and took longer than the pizza kitchen - which was a clear lie as we had watched three tables receive their non-pizza meals, as mentioned before. We moved on, enjoyed our meals. When we got our bills, there were several items that we had not asked for on the bills. The one we were most shocked by, was the small side cup of marinara sauce that we requested with our appetizers - our party asked 4 different servers/staff over a span of 30 minutes for the stupid marinara. It was finally brought (and the appetizer was cold) and we used it. When our entrees came out, another side of marinara was brought and we told them we didn’t need it. With the bills, we were charged $4.50 EACH for the two marinaras. We explained to the server that we didn’t need two, we only asked for one, it was a mistake and we hadn’t even touched the second… nope we still paid $9 for marinara 😊 absolutely insane. These are petty details - we ended up paying it all and moving on. The food was amazing and we had a great time. The atmosphere is so cute - but sit outside for sure!! Also, beware of parking! The parking lot on the southbound side of the highway is very small. The food is amazing but the staff needs a little training on...

The food and atmosphere were spectacular. The terraza, complete with a vintage Fiat, Italian-colored string lights and soothing steel drum live music was charming and cool-enough even on a balmy evening because of the circulating fans.

We started with the Burratina pizza, which was the best I have ever had - the dough was chewy and fluffy and the presentation was so smart: the burrata was cut up and dispersed across the pizza (which is something many other restaurants have failed to do, instead serving the burrata intact in the middle of the pizza and letting dinners struggle to cut a wiggling ball of burrata on top of sliding hot cheese and sauce). For entrées, we had the fettuccine with ragú bolognese and the tortellini with amatriciana (a special). Both pasta were perfectly cooked and the sauces were complex and silky.

What would have been a perfect evening was dampened by the arrival of a 14-person group at the collection of tables next to us. In no way do I blame the party themselves, but rather the entire service team of the restaurant failed to handle this properly. First, the hostess allowed the group to try to seat themselves across by dragging tables around and robbing chairs. Secondly, their arrival seemed to completely overwhelm our server who appeared to have forgotten to put in our pizza order, since neighboring tables in another server’s section who sat later than us had theirs far sooner. The wait for food would have not been so bad, if we had been able to order a second round of drinks. Thirdly, when the manager bumped into our table while backing up to take a photo for this large group and shot us a “All good?” over his shoulder, he apparently did not hear our response asking for another round.

Thankfully, when the food did finally arrive, it was delicious. The kitchen does an incredible job. For this reason, I will happily order takeout, but unfortunately will not dine in person again. I understand parties of this size are not the norm, but busy nights are and this experience exposed the lack of organization surrounding the service side of the restaurant when they get slammed. My suggestion if you’re planning on dining there is to go on early on...