Strada in the Grove — Restaurant in Miami

Our table was ready when we arrived and we were seated promptly. The open air seating in the rear offered a nice ambience with dim lighting. Upon request, our waiter brought 2 bottles of wine for me to review the labels. I selected a $50 Rioja which was at the modestly priced end of the spectrum. Once the waiter saw I wanted the lesser priced wine, which I recognized as a $12 value wine at the wine shop, he suggested a "special Rioja" which was priced at $400. That was the first ding he earned against his tip.

The 4 of us ordered 2 salads to split; the farrow and the Mediterranean. Each was split in the kitchen and served. I thoroughly enjoyed the Mediterranean salad however the other couple was greatly disappointed because their farrow salad was mostly farrow, a starchy grain, and hand very little of the expected greens.

Our main courses were mixed.

Since Strada has a reputation for good pasta Our friends ordered the gnocchi which was very disappointing. The gnocchi was mushy and tasted like old mashed potatoes in ketchup. It should have been al dente with a more flavorful sauce.

The Veal scaloppine in mushroom sauce was very good but the portion was a bit small. The salmon was a huge portion which could have fed two hungry diners. It was superbly prepared and presented with French green beans and scalloped potatoes.

We were disturbed by two misbehaving children about 5 years old who were running around the restaurant chasing each other, shrieking, and screaming loudly. The parents refused to control them until we asked the manager to intervein. We were surprised that none of the staff were proactive in asking the parents to keep their children at their table; especially after it was obvious that we were being disturbed and asked the children to stop charging our table several times.

Overall, I rate our experience as average; nothing special and somewhat disappointing. Without the screaming kids, the ambience would be great and knowing the right things to order would make a better dining experience. A waiter with the customer experience as a higher priority than his tip amount would raise the rating...

Myself and various friends/family members reserved a number of tables for the same night this past week as folks were in for my wedding. We requested to be seated near each other if restaurant had availability. Prior to the dinner we all confirmed our reservations. That night of, one of the hostesses called me to confirm our reservation which I did. She mentioned patio seating was not available as they didn't have enough reservations. I thought it was odd given our friends/family reservations would cover over 20 people in total. When I told the hostess that we did have a number of reservations under different names, she started screaming at me, telling me we could not do that and that if we were having an "event" we had to go through catering. She continued in the most unprofessional manner to let me know that she would NOT be seating us together. I told her that was fine and that at the end of the day there were different reservations for different family and friends that needed to be honored. I reiterated we simply made the request to sit together but understood if they couldn't accommodate us. I got very upset at how she was speaking to me with such disrespect. I reminder her that I was a customer giving the restaurant business and that this type of behavior was unacceptable. She continued yelling that this was not ok and that we should had worked with catering. I told her the reservations were made and needed to be honored period and then hung up. After some reflection my fiance and I decided this was not an establishment that deserved our business nor our family and friends and so we cancelled. So in the end they lost out on business from over 20+ people not to mention any potential future business any of us would have given them....

STRADA: A mafia of good service inside and anything goes outside.

As regular I was always a big fan of Strada. However, it is apparent the service has double standards for guests seating inside vs outside.

There is no consistency of standards between outside and inside dining and in fact, if you are seated outside you - you will definitely feel neglected! It is like a mafia of good service inside and anything goes outside.

BOOKINGS: We made a booking for 7 a day ago for 8 pm. We called at 7.55 and said we were running late by 5-8 mts. They said our table was ready inside and that it will be held. I also advised that one member of our party had special needs in terms of space. On arrival - there was no table ready. They said they gave it to another group of guests that arrived, despite the assurances. Then an effort to make up table outside got under way hastily. At first, they set up two tables and tried to squish four chairs on one side and three on the other side. On protest, another table was added. There was no central manager that sorted it - it felt a group of poorly trained staff did their best.

FOOD & SERVICE: The good service standards inside is not mirrored outside. The waiting staff to guests ratio was imbalanced. Inside there were all the usual numerous regular male waiting staff - while the outside was managed by a single woman.

Strada had no vegan options accept for one vegetarian pasta. No effort to modify any of its popular dishes. When our orders arrived there was confusion who ordered what and the server had to go chasing the single waiter to point which dish matched the individual order.

Poor form Strada - when Miami’s dining fare has exceptionally advanced and diners have...