San Matteo Italian Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in Florida

I will try to keep this as short and sweet as possible. If you do not feel like reading this entire post, just skip to the end where I explain how the owner HUNG UP on me while I was voicing my feedback about our carry out order.

We ordered carry out, 3 entrees, a salad, an appetizer and bread came with it. Well the bread was the only enjoyable part. Sour old pasta, dry and crumbly ricotta, sauce that tasted like it came from a jar. My biggest issue was the sincere lack of flavor in every single dish. No seasoning, not even salt and pepper. For $100 we should have been able to enjoy our meal, we did not.

I decided to call the day after to speak with a manager because I do care about local restaurants in our area and as a restaurant industry professional, I would want to know if my kitchen sent out awful food too. I called and spoke to Tiffany, the beverage manager, and she was so sweet, had sincerity in her voice and showed genuine hospitality. She took my information and told me the owner would be calling me. I was initially impressed that the owner, not just the GM, would call me back. About 15 mins later my phone rings, and it’s the owner.

Now, as someone who has been on the receiving end of not so happy phone calls regarding food before I tried to stay as positive and polite as I could. I was explaining what was wrong with the items and my overall concerns. The owner would rudely interrupt me and tell me that they only use the best of the best products, his arrogance came threw when he specifically brought up that they don’t get their food from Restaurant Depot, and it’s much better quality than I am used to. When I brought up the lack of seasoning and flavor, he rudely asked “well what kind of seasoning should they be using” that threw me off because it is not my restaurant and I should not be telling him how to properly season his food. He did offer a chance for us to come in and dine with them again free of charge but when I replied that I did not feel comfortable coming in since the initial food we received was sour, he asked what I would like. I suggested a refund. He told me that they were not able to do that because of their system. They use Toast POS, the most common POS system in our country. The same POS system my restaurant uses, so I informed him that it is easy to do a refund on Toast but okay. He then had the audacity to accuse me of lying. He stated since it was a carry out order it’s my opinion vs his and I cannot prove what I am saying is true. I was in utter shock. I then stated that I have been trying to be polite but I do not like being accused of lying. This gem of a man then HUNG UP on me. In my 15 years in restaurants I would never imagine hanging up on a guest no matter their complaint or concern. Shame on you, everyone makes mistakes but how you handle it really shows the person you are and the kind of business you are running.

With an attitude like that towards genuinely concerned guests, I do not think this restaurant will be in business for long. Hospitality is already a dying breed but this guys blatant disrespect and arrogance will cost him in the long run.

Moral of the story, DO NOT GO TO SAN MATEO unless you want to be spoken down to...

Wow, that kinda sums it up, But it’s a bad wow…..

So it was our first time ordering from here, we ordered 3 entrees, Mozzarella sticks, and burrata. What can I say, the bread that comes with it is kind of good, that was the highlight.

How do you screw up fried, mozzarella cheese well apparently this place knows. The answer is don’t season anything and fry it in oil that was probably too cold making the whole entire dish grease., but I’m just speculating.

My roommate wanted the burrata cheese salad thing. She loves burrata and gets it every time it’s on the menu. Normally she does not mention the cheese is dry and flavorless.

The bolognese with bucatini was a huge disappointment. This is my favorite sauce and noodle combination so I could not resist getting it. The noodles were horribly undercooked and the sauce was pretty flavorless.

The pasta with vodka sauce was pretty much the same, undercooked pasta, bland, flavorless sauce. The ricotta cheese that comes with it was very confusing as I’ve never seen dry crumbly ricotta before.

To top it off the fettuccine Alfredo was just confusing. I’m pretty sure they use the same store bought Alfredo sauce in a jar that your basic college student buys at Walmart. Grilled chicken that I paid extra for was bad. I don’t think it had ever seen salt and pepper before. How does one say bland in Italian? Oh and if you were wondering, the noodles were undercooked.

I’m trying to be light hearted about this whole situation, but it really was bad. I’m pretty sure we waisted $110 trying this place. I can forgive a lot in this world, but not using salt and pepper is pretty damn hard to forgive. Not to mention an Italian place not properly cooking pasta….. I’ll stick to Nino’s...

What a surprisingly wonderful dining experience. My husband and I made an impromptu reservation on St. Patrick's Day for dinner. It was a lovely evening so we reserved an outside table. Our server, Natalie, was so personable and attentive, we knew we were in for a pleasant experience. Natalie delivered our wine; a Super Tuscan Red and a fabulous pinot grigio as well as bread served with EVOO & parm cheese. Great way to begin our dining experience. After answering a few questions re the menu, I decided on the Short Ribs Ragu and my better half chose the veal picatta. WOW! I am Italian and very critical about dining out for Italian food. We are from Boston and dine in Boston's North End with authentic Italian cuisine. We have been snowbirds for 12 years now and have not (at least me) been overly impressed with Italian cuisine in the Naples area. Let me just say that the owners are from Sicily (as are mine) and opened their first restaurant in Brooklyn NY. They took the time to come out to greet some "senior" Sicilian guests at a nearby table who spoke Italian which was impressive. My short ribs ragu was beyond my expectations. I also got to taste the veal picatta, my husband's entree which was wonderful. We were having such a great time that we decided to stay and enjoy another glass of wine after dinner. We've already chosen at least three other entrees plus the pizza that we'd like to try out and can't wait until our next visit. Forgot to add that there was a very talented gentleman entertaining the crowd with wonderful dinner music which was the icing...