Ambrosia — Restaurant in Indianapolis

This was a very nice, small restaurant. However, I think the comments gave me an idea of something a bit more fancy and romantic for taking my husband to for our anniversary.

Walking up from the parking lot in the back, we were not sure if the door attached to the patio dining area (very chill and nice vibe area) was the front door or not, it was. Not very clear when walking up.

When making our reservation (they use open table), it asked for event, which I put anniversary, and special requests, which I requested 2 glasses of a house red at the table when we got there; trying to set a romantic and special vibe for us. When we entered, the lady at the front was on the phone but did not take long to get off to seat us. Typically when I make special reservation requests, I would be greeted with something like, happy birthday or right this way, Chad. It was a very generic seating experience, and to my surprise, was seated at an empty table with no wine. :(

When we were seated, we both ended up ordering an old fashion. I must say, the old fashion was very good, props to the bartender who made that. The dining area seemed very bright for the type of vibe I had thought Ambrosia was giving off.

The nice lady who was our server seemed nervous or new, but was very sweet. We started off with the Arancini. The plate looked very appealing. The risotto was a bit grainy (not as tender as risotto should be) and the sauce was good, but added purely for a plating element it seemed, rather than enough to compliment the dish. I would use just a bit more sauce to set the balls on to not take away from the plating element of the dish, but still give enough sauce to make the dish enjoyable.

I then ordered 2 oysters, one of each kind they had. They were very small, and came with just cocktail sauce. I think a wedge of lemon and maybe some very finely chopped fried shallots would have been better options to compliment the natural oyster flavor. The amount of sauce give with these two, tiny oysters was about 2-3 tablespoons, almost filling the ramekin it came in. So way too much for fresh oysters, and way too little for the Arancini.

Next, we ordered our main dishes. I ordered the Ravioli della mama. The server asked if I would like some wine with my main dish, and I said yes. I asked for something that would pair well with the dish. I already had ideas of what would pair well, but I always try to take the house’s advice. She asked red or white, I told her typically red, but what ever pairs best with the dish (spinach ravioli with a creamy pesto). She recommended the Super Tuscan, a red blend, more on the heavy red side, typically I would have this with more of steak or a red sauce based pasta. I went with her recommendation. My husband ordered the spaghetti con Limon.

The server brought some bread to the table after taking our order. Not sure if it is supposed to come after the starters or not, but was a nice surprise. The bread was amazing! With some of the olive oil on top, fantastic.

The server brought our food shortly after. The food looked good. We were offered grated Parmesan, which was not freshly grated in front of us, but came in a little bowl and a spoon that the server used to sprinkle on our plates with. There was no freshly ground black pepper offered either. The food was pleasant. My raviolis and a nice sauce, and the noodle itself had a good texture. My husband’s plate was also good, I would had liked to seen a bit more lemon in the flavor, however, it wasn’t my dish and he enjoyed it; so that’s what counts.

After finishing the main course, we took some home. We were handed Togo boxes, which at a nice restaurant, I was surprised that they did not box our plates for us. So we boxed our food, skipped on dessert, since for the price, it was sub par. We try to visit local restaurants to support small businesses and you typically get better quality food than at chains. I’m this case, we thought we may have had a better experience at one of the nicer Italian chains.

Overall, it was a good experience, just...

Where to start. My husband and I drove over an hour to have a date night dinner in Indianapolis. I had heard that Ambrosia was the place to go. We had made reservations for a Saturday night. From the moment we walked in the restaurant, we were greeted by two high school age kids who stood around looking very useless. She sat us at a very small table squeezed between two other tables. I asked for a nicer location and she obliged. Our waiter, Graham, was pleasant but very harried and obviously was either new or had too many tables to wait on. We had to repeatedly ask him for bread for our table. He never told us that there were specials for the evening and only told us after we had overheard another waiter telling a neighboring table. He offered to change our orders after he told us, but by then we were so unimpressed, that we said no. The manager/owner heard all of this taking place and never came over to ask if he could help or make our dining experience better. While we were eating, we kept being asked if we were finished with our meals, even though we were still eating. We also ordered two bottles of wine, so it wasn't as if we were trying to hurry. Our bill was 187.00 without tip and so, we weren't being cheap in this restaurant. Actually, I am not sure when I have experienced a worse dining experience. The food was also very mediocre, but we were so put off by the people here, the food was almost an aside . I wonder what Ruth Reichl would have said about them if she had dined here and if they would even care. I would...

We were hosting friends from out of town and chose Ambrosia. We walked in a few minutes before 5:00 and proceeded to take 3 seats at the bar, waiting for our 4th person to join us. We were told that we could not sit at the bar because some Friday night regulars would be sitting in the seats we chose. I proceeded to the hostess station to ask for our table reservation that was for 5:30. We understand that we were early but there were a few others sitting down and we would have been patient and waited for the restaurant to open. My husband questioned the bartender and said we had never been told we couldn’t sit down and the bartender/assistant general manager told the hostess to cancel our reservation and that we needed to leave. We were not even given the option to sit at a table away from the bar. We are business owners, long time generous customers of Ambrosia and have a very healthy understanding of customer service. We also have connections with the family/owners. Not only was this embarrassing to our guests, we will never return. There is no place for a manager of any level to have a bad attitude with a guest that came to spend money for four meals and good wine. Your assistant general manager has a problem that is costing you...