Gusto A Taste Of Rome — Restaurant in Jacksonville Beach

Copy of my Yelp review, because there are so many deceptive positive reviews of this place that misrepresents themselves as a quality resturant but I don't think we just had a bad night, I think this place is bad in how they prep their food. I've only been there once but this was my experience, in great detail:

Overpriced mediocre food. The second basket of bread they served was stale. I had the cernia alla francesse. "Fresh" grouper was obviously pre-cooked and refrigerated or frozen from the texture. The outside was spongy and moist, the fish was too firm and mostly flavorless not like fresh grouper. The spinach they served it on top of was unseasoned overcooked mush. Pasta was worse than most you get in a box, probably cooked far in advance and reheated to order. Sauces were overly salty. The salad that came with my meal was the highlight and it was just ok.

My girlfriend (that lived in Sicily earlier in life and was looking forward to good pizza), ordered one of their pizzas that had arugula, vinaigrette, prosciutto, parmesan. The crust of the pizza was drenched in white vinegar, not balsamic or anything you would want to use for food. The arugula was just raw and piled on the pizza. On top of that was a few shavings parmesan that wasn't even warm. The prosciutto was sparingly laid on top of that and it was of very low quality and also not cooked in any way. This was an inedible pizza and we did not eat it, and they took it away and did not charge us for it, which I appreciated.

They asked if we wanted something else and my girlfriend regretfully said she would. She decided to try their tortellini in vodka sauce. This was bottom grade frozen tortellini, worse than the stuff you can buy refrigerated at any grocery store. The vodka sauce was also of poor quality, better stuff available in a jar. They put some red onions in it and sprinkled some grated parmesan (likely Kraft brand) on top. She choked down about half of it and decided she was finished. I tried one bite of it and wished I hadn't, it was gross.

This was my first and last visit here. A shame too, the live band playing was pretty good. This place won't miss our business, they had a big crowd. I think Olive Garden serves better frozen Italian food and I only go there when somebody else is making the decision!

This restaurant misrepresents itself on its website and menu. I quote: "Gusto prepares all of its classic Roman pastas, pizzas, salads and starters by hand, using fresh, local, ingredients and authentic Italian family recipes passed down over generations." So why was my $28 grouper pre-cooked and reheated? Why was my pasta? Why was the tortellini? And why was a pizza choice on their menu that wasn't even a custom order,...

An overpriced restaurant with expensive bad Italian food and bad service. We had a reservation for 10 people for a dinner celebration at the Doral location. We already visited the restaurant and talked with the manager in order to have everything planned. Per rest manager we have a window of one hour to prepare the table decoration and we even selected the area for the event. The day of the dinner, when we get to the restaurant to decorate our reserved table, other party was using our reserved table and our reservation was lost in the upside down. We explain our situation to the manager at the time in the restaurant (not the same). The manager start to give us excuses after excuses and start talking to someone over the phone. He was super lost and confused. Some of the excuses were that the other manager was new, other excuses was that the bartender are not authorize to make reservations, all this when we already have talked with restaurant manager approximately four times and even visited the location. After ten minutes the manager solution was to provide us an empty table at our upside down reservation time. About the food, first you have to pay for the water, you don’t have other option $4 for the bottled water. We ordered a Salmon, Fettuccini alla carbonara, parmigiana di pollo, Parpadelle alla Bolognese, and a risotto al formaggi. The salmon was approx. 4oz, over cooked dry as a desert and no taste. The salmon had some veggies with no taste and a spray of olive oil, bad for a $28 dollars plate. The fettuccini alla carbonara had a hint of sauce with under cooked pasta way less than al dente and a load of bacon. The parmigiana di pollo was almost burned, was like a piece of rubber with no flavor and almost a teaspoon of tomato sauce. The parpadelle, had an unflavored canned beef with a hint of tomato sauce. The risotto portion was approx. quarter of a cup with the same amount of salt. Conclusion, at this price you will find better places in the Doral area that serve good quality Italian food with...

I have been wanting to try Gusto Bistro Italiano & Wine Bar since they opened their location in St. Augustine but didn't have a chance until today. We were in the Publix Plaza when I saw their restaurant so we decided to stop in for an early dinner.

The restaurant itself is extremely clean and cozy. The seating is somewhat tight due to the small space but they also have outside seating in front of the restaurant. When we walked in our server immediately greeted us...she gave us a choice of seating and recommended that we sit at the popular corner table. We thought this was funny but she was correct as customers had called while we were dining and asked if it was available or could be reserved! In any case, it was a perfect seating location for two people.

Our server took our drink orders and answered every question we had about the menu. I can't recall her name but she one of the better servers we have had in a long time...she was awesome! We decided to go with the Lasagna Classica Romana and the Pappardelle Bolognese. Each dinner came with bread and a house salad.

The salads and bread were brought out first. The bread was hot and crusty and the salads were a nice size. My dressing, (Blue Cheese), was flavorful but it was extremely salty. My dinner partner said the same thing about his House Dressing.

Our entrees came out after we were finished with our salads. I wasn't a fan of my Pappardelle Bolognese dish. I love chunks of vegetables and meat in my Bolognese but none of that could be detected here. I, honestly, would have thought it was a simple marinara sauce if I wasn't told differently. The Pappardelle was also overcooked and somewhat mushy. My partner said his lasagna was okay but he didn't care for the sauce in his dish either.

In the end, we had amazing service in a cute restaurant but we were both disappointed with our meals. It's possible that it was an off encounter or we chose the wrong dishes because this place normally gets really...