Jon & Vinny's Fairfax — Restaurant in Los Angeles

As a long-time supporter of Jon & Vinny’s, I was excited to take my friends to their Fairfax location during a visit over the weekend. Unfortunately, our experience was a bit disappointing, and I'm not sure I can continue supporting their locations moving forward.

We had a 9 PM reservation, but we weren’t seated until well past 9:30 PM. The hostess kept assuring us that the table would be ready "in 10 minutes" every 10 minutes, until about 9:40 PM. At that point, Gabriel, the manager, came out to apologize for the delay. While I appreciate the apology, the way it was handled wasn’t ideal.

To make up for the wait, Gabriel took us to Helen's, their wine bar, and offered us complimentary starters like garlic bread and a gem salad while we waited for our table to open up. He also offered us wine, and after politely declining alcohol, he insisted on giving us a non-alcoholic wine. We reluctantly agreed to try it, shortly after we were seated nearly 50 minutes past our reservation time and the the starters and wine arrived.

Once the wine was poured, the server asked if we wanted the bottle or just the glasses. We explained that we’d prefer to taste it first before deciding. One of my friends didn’t even touch it because he found it too sweet for his tastes, and ultimately, we decided it wasn’t for us. We asked the server to take the bottle away, and things seemed like they were getting back on track.

But when the check came, things took a turn. The starters, which Gabriel had offered to make up for the wait, were added on the bill. Worse, we were charged $57 for the bottle of wine we never wanted or agreed to. I flagged Gabriel down to address the mistake, and he graciously took off the charge for the starters. However, when he returned with the bill, the $57 charge for the wine was still there, and he told me it was for the three glasses of wine we had ordered. At this point, I was so embarrassed by the confusion and his negligence that I decided to pay the bill just to avoid any further drama.

To add insult to injury, my friend later pointed out that the wine was $11 per glass on the menu, which didn’t match the $57 bottle charge they gave us. It left a bad taste in my mouth (no pun intended), and I’m not sure if I’ll be back to Jon & Vinny’s anytime soon.

Overall, the food was great as always, but the service and billing errors were enough to make me second-guess my loyalty to this restaurant. I’m disappointed, especially after all the years of...

I'd like to start off by saying that the food and our waiter Evan were wonderful. Everything came out quickly and tasted great, and Evan was very attentive and knowledgeable about the menu. However, I am unlikely to come back because of how rude the hostess was.

I originally made a reservation for 5 people, but we had a last minute change of plans and ended up having a party of 6. I didn't think this would be too much of an issue because usually when you seat a table for 5, there's 3 people on one side and 2 people on the other - it shouldn't be a big jump to then seat 3 people on each side. Regardless, I wanted to call and double check if this would be an issue.

I explained this to the woman on the phone, but she told me that upping our party to 6 people from 5 would not be possible, as there was no capacity. She then asked if I wanted to cancel the reservation and wait, but she wouldn't be able to give me a wait time. I told her no worries, I'd still like to keep our existing reservation.

We arrived at the restaurant and I told the hostess that we had a reservation for 5 people, but would it be alright if we had 6 people instead. The woman (whose name I believe is Aysia, as she was wearing a necklace saying that) looked at me and very aggressively said "You already called and I already told you that we don't have capacity. You can wait in line or stick with 5 people, but I can't give you a wait time either. What do you want to do?" I was taken aback by her attitude. We decided to wait but were already making plans to eat somewhere else. Additionally, the restaurant was half empty and as we were waiting, we saw Aysia seat a party of 2 at a booth that could have easily fit 6 people.

We made one last effort to ask for accommodation, and a kind gentleman quickly told us it wouldn't be an issue at all since, in his words, "We can easily seat 3 people on each side. I'm not sure why [Aysia] told you we don't have room."

In all, this experience left a bad impression on us. Even if it was truly impossible to sit 3 people on each side of a table we already had reserved, the manner in which Aysia spoke to us was entirely unacceptable. I understand last minute changes to a reservation can impact the flow of the restaurant, and I would have been completely okay with being denied accommodation had Aysia been less rude. In all, I would not return here and would not recommend this...

My husband and I made a reservation here after a friend of ours highly recommended it. I made a reservation for a dining room table five days in advance. Upon arrival, we were seated at the chef’s counter, which we were very disappointed to settle with after the host doubled down and said regardless of if I made a reservation for a dining room table, all parties of two are seated at the chef’s counter by default. I wish I knew why, when there were two open tables in the dining room the whole time we were there. We were also forced to sit tightly in between other guests, but thankfully we had enough table space. The restaurant is small, intimate and ambient, with loud music bumping. Our server Randy (?) was kind, patient and was very attentive to us. We started with the gem lettuce salad and burrata toast with honey. The ingredients were fresh and it was beautifully presented, but tasted very one note. I could have made a better salad at home, to be completely honest. The burrata toast tasted great, but the amount of burrata far outweighed the amount of honey and other toppings, which some may prefer, but it was a big mouthful of burrata without tasting much else. All of the dishes were served to share, and I felt like both starters were a fair portion for two people. The pesto radiatori tasted delicious, flavorful, and robust. My only note was that it felt like a stingy sized portion for the price. The LA Woman pizza was well done, the sauce was not too sweet and the crust was perfectly crispy. The pizza had the opposite problem of the burrata toast, it had a spoonful of burrata topped with a piece of basil. It was tasty, but I could have used half of the burrata that was on the toast on the pizza instead. We ordered a variety of desserts, including the Italian rainbow cookie, the vegan oatmeal cookie sandwich, and a tiramisu. Randy was kind enough to drop off a very tall swirled ice cream, due to the disappointment of our seating. Overall decent food, but would not go back because of the pointless reservation and not ideal seating situation. The 18% of gratuity added on the bill was silly to put on the bottom of the menu, please just charge more for the food. Pay your...