Happy Wine in the Grove — Restaurant in Miami

WATCH OUT!

Although this happened at Nasty Wine in Calle Ocho, please see below!

Unfortunately one of the worst restaurant experiences in my life!!

HORROR WINE!

My Wife and her Girlfriend invited me out to check out Happy Wine Calle Ocho, over the years my wife has said good things about this place. I was excited to go!

I'm really not into wine and the girls bought two bottles of wine each (TO GO). It's like a wine store as well. And they both shared a bottle and 1/2, about three glasses each. After about the my first beer I started dancing, then I ordered another.. I was completely parched. My wife and her friend were very nice and spent over 165$. We were to leave, and I waited, waited, waited, I then decided to go to the bar and get my beer directly!

I was told the manager has cut me off!! I had two beers!! I asked to speak to the manager but she suddenly left, and left no one else in charge of the operations of the restaurant. We decided to stay and wait for her !! Then a woman with large, Bully, Woman showed up and she pushed my wife three times (of course, showing she was the boss in this matter).. If it were like 1990 I would use different adjectives for this lady. My wife is considering pressing assault charges against this woman by the name of Johanna..

One lady, Johanna, ruined what would have been a fantastic evening over one BEER!

The place was nice, but if you have to deal with Johanna or anyone on her staff, be careful, protect yourself! I wish Johanna and her Hippo's Well, and hope management does some house cleaning! Please send me a note if you have had a similar...

Ate there last night with my girlfriends. We made reservations but don’t think they were necessary because it was not busy. The vibe and overall atmosphere is so cute. The food was phenomenal other than the dates. They were way too big with little to almost no filling or blue cheese flavor. We got the grilled artichokes which were so good! My friend called them the silent sleeper of the night. The 2 star dishes were the burrata with Serrano ham and the skirt steak. We also got the black Siberian sturgeon caviar, We asked for bread and butter on the side and sooo happy we did! we ordered a second basket because it was that good! The service on the other hand.. our waitress did not bring water after asking twice. We had to get up and ask the guy behind the bar. I can sympathize and understand everyone has their days but she did everything but wait on her tables. Play with the tv, talk to her co workers or go downstairs and dissapear. The food runners were more attentive than she was. we had to ask her to clear the extra place settings after the food arrived, never removed the empty plates and worst of all could not provide us any recommendations. Thankful for good company and the food otherwise I would never come back from the service alone. Our check was 400$+ but regardless of the amount of the bill, all of your customers...

I think it's important to emphasize first that we were a lot of people at the top part of the local, and maybe going in a smaller group would have resulted in a different experience. The waiters were ok upstairs, the lady downstairs was super super nice and pointed us to a fantastic white wine from NZ that we really enjoyed. Food was generally good, my favorite dish (and I think everyone would agree) was the risotto. I'd also highlight the manchego croquetas, the crispy calamary, huevos rotos, and patatas bravas. Not recommended: steamed mussels, beef carpaccio. The pulpo a la gallega was good but the portion was almost a bit ridiculous. The seafood paellita food was very bad. It was definitely not a paella, more of a moist rice with things... but it was very very hard to eat. It also came out super late, well after all the other dishes had come out and when we were about to tell them it was not worth it anymore because we needed to leave soon (a long time had passed). We were eager to try it especially given how good the risotto was! But we literally could not eat it even if we wanted to. I am not sure what happened.... Overall, I think this may be a great place to come for a wine and more of an appetizer/snack with a small group of people to chat calmly and over a long period of time, but would not recommend for a large...