Pesca Vilano Rooftop — Restaurant in Florida

This place and their management are an absolute joke. Katherine and Alison have no idea what they are doing.

Pesca is refusing to refund us a bill of about $120.00 because they don’t believe the food poisoning came from them (a drop in the bucket IF a restaurant is doing well). Of course they are going to deny that! The right thing as a business is to refund us anyway. If a customer is truly insisting that they had a terrible time at your establishment, then you make it right.

I have never had more of a poor customer service interaction with any business/person ever. Again, if you read further in my review, I’ve never even left a review in my entire life! They did not consistently communicate or follow up whatsoever. The past two weeks, I have probably called and left messages 3-4 times as well as my husband. ONLY WHEN I CALLED THE HOTEL WAS I ABLE TO GET THROUGH.

Alison and Katherine - tell me how the six people got sick and that is the only thing they ate in common, while the rest of us did not get sick and did not eat it? Tell me how we had all been together several days prior without incident? Tell me how it is not food poisoning when the type of sickness and symptoms exactly matched and came on at the same time?

Fine, you don’t want to own up to it, how about the other fundamental issues you display? Tell me from a customer service standpoint why you never returned my calls and it took me contacting the hotel to get ahold of you?

I want to add that I agree with the most recent other 1 star review. When our party got up there, one of the first things the bartenders said was we could not order food through them. We would have to go downstairs, order, then wait and bring it up in to-go containers. It was also completely empty besides our party at the time - 4PM Nights of Lights?

How about you refund us for that? For the fact you advertise as a rooftop restaurant, but the customer has to do the work for the food by going downstairs to what is essentially a separate restaurant to order takeout and bring it up? Or how about that your prices do not match the portion or quality of food? We could go into that aspect if you’d like.

ORIGINAL REVIEW: In my entire 30 years of life, I have never left a negative review on a web platform (Google, Yelp, etc.).

Friday 12/13/24, myself, my husband, and 14 of our closest friends and family (2 being young children) went to Pesca rooftop bar around 4PM to 5:15PM.

For backstory, my husband Sebastian is born and raised in Saint Augustine and I went to Flagler. Sebastian and I have been together 8 years and we currently live in Massachusetts. He proposed last December and we began planning a very small, intimate ceremony with only the people mentioned above.

It was an amazing night and we were so excited to get married the next day (12/14/24) with these same people by our sides.

Instead, of our 14 guests - 6 of them got SEVERE food poisoning, from of all things chicken tenders. One was my 4 year old nephew who is now scared to eat a full meal. Another was my brother in law who couldn’t even get out of bed. All three of my sisters got it, one of which is a Type 1 diabetic that contemplated going to the hospital. And finally my dad, who was our officiant and could barely make it through the 20 minute ceremony but did it for us.

Again of the 16 people we had planned a YEAR to have this weekend with, 6 of them were severely food poisoned by Pesca. They threw up basically the entire contents of their bodies, didn’t sleep, now have extreme guilt, are still recovering days later, could not make any other weekend festivities including our wedding dinner, could not be fully present for the any of the day basically and I do not blame them one bit. Sebastian and I will never get this weekend back or what we had dreamed it to be.

I warn everyone that either the staff or kitchen is not equipped for proper food safety and this could easily happen again.

Again, Alison and Katherine - your responses and how you have handled this have truly been a slap...

WORST not inexpensive experience we’ve ever had.

We went on Saturday at 130. Website says they open at noon. Inside it says 3pm. We informed the lobby bartender. He literally argued with us. And the receptionists at the hotel acted like they hate the restaurant when we told them. They said “the restaurant doesn’t know what they are doing most of the time”.

SO. We returned at 3pm. The rooftop bartender then told us there was no service there. If we wanted ANYTHING to drink, including water, we had to go to the bar and request it. AND if we wanted food, we had to go to the lobby bar and order it as takeout and bring it to the rooftop ourselves??? We had friends drive an hour to meet us. So we went to lobby bar. The lone bartender had no idea they were not serving food on the rooftop. We had to inform him.

We wound up eating out of carry out boxes on the rooftop. And we cleared the table ourselves!!!! This is just horrible horrible service for what calls itself a high end experience. And SO embarrassing with our visiting friends who drove an hour.

The food is literally decent. But DEFINITELY not worth the price when you get NO SERVICE WHATSOEVER.

This place is HEMORRHAGING. They shut down the high end Pesca seafood house and are now moving the Michael’s Steak House in there, guarantee because they signed a long term lease.

Perhaps he also overextended himself by opening La Nouvelle, the very expensive French restaurant in old town. There are only so many people that want to pay those exorbitant prices.

I’ve heard bad things about the Michael’s family of restaurants....

My hubs took me to Pesca Vilano for Valentines Day - first time for both of us, but certainly won’t be our last. We started with delicious oysters from Virginia, the passion fruit migonette is a wonderful twist on a classic. For appetizers we had lobster bao buns and and the smoked waygu nigiri. We both agree that the bao buns were the best we have ever had and the nigiri is presented beautifully in a smoke dome that’s lifted at the table. For dinner he did the scallops (the pea and mint risotto was incredible) and I did the surf and turf special. My filet was cooked to perfection as were the shrimp but what really set our entrees apart were the creative and deep layers of flavor in each element - the sides, sauces, and toppings were all as stunning as the protein. For dessert I did the cappuccino crème brûlée and he did the coquito tres leche cake. Both were nothing short of outstanding.

We both love to travel and eat, and I have to say it’s been a long time since something in St. Augustine impressed me enough to write a review for internet. I will warn people that it is pricey, that being said I absolutely believe the quality matched the price tag - I’m a person who doesn’t mind coughing up the cash if it’s fabulous and it truly was. The service Karla provided and ambiance were also outstanding. Her personality was delightful and she coursed our dinner perfectly. We ate in the dining room but I can’t wait to go back and check out the rooftop and its menu....