ZOI Restaurant & Lounge — Restaurant in Miami

I wanted so badly to love this place, but unfortunately the experience did not live up to the great ratings I see here. Made a reservation here for my bday, which is on Valentine’s Day, with my friends and family. Almost every thing that could have gone wrong happened. I will say that the atmosphere and live entertainment was amazing, but if you’re sitting in the very back you don’t get to see much of it.

Service was SLACKING. Our server Ahmet didn’t check on us a single time, we had to wave him down anytime we needed anything and even then we were lucky if he didn’t ignore us. They kept pouring still water in sparkling water cups and sparkling in still water cups. Server didn’t ask anyone about any food allergies, preferences, or intolerances which then led to me being served a dish with cinnamon in it (which I can’t consume). It’s a relatively new allergy for me, so I forget about it very often. I ordered the beef short rib, it had cinnamon so I asked to switch it with something else. Upon the servers suggestion, I ordered the lamb shank instead, which to my surprise ALSO HAD CINNAMON. I’m not sure if it was just accidentally cooked in the same pan as the short rib or what, but four people at my table tasted it and confirmed they also tasted cinnamon. By that point I wasn’t even hungry anymore, but finally got salmon which was cooked well and tasty.

The food had so much potential to be incredible; however almost EVERY meal that we ordered had some kind of issue. Lamb chops were overcooked, branzino was cold, 2 of my friends’ salmon came out 40 min after everyone else got their meals, random salads were brought to us, and dip appetizer was forgotten. My friends who ordered lamb chops were all served well done lamb when they had ordered medium rare. When they were sent back and redone, one of my friends received almost fully uncooked lamb (which she didn’t want to send back AGAIN) and is now experiencing major stomach issues today from eating it.

We ended up making friends at the bathroom who said they were having a very similar experience, so maybe it was just a bad night for the restaurant? But I worked in the service industry for 6 years, and I know how to treat guests when things are going poorly but apparently the staff here does not. Our server didn’t apologize once for any of the issues, he did not come to us to warn us that things in the kitchen were backed up and may take some time, he basically avoided the entire section and simply just took orders and disappeared. One of the support servers argued with my mom (who’s a chef) about the lamb tasting like it has cinnamon instead of just saying something like “okay let’s not risk it and we can just get something else instead.” These people do not care about you as a customer, and it shows. Probably because their gratuity is already included so they don’t have to do their jobs well.

We ended up talking to the owner after our bill came out and things were all wrong on it. He was very kind and was able to fix it for us, so I do appreciate his assistance and understanding. I didn’t like that he tried to redirect the blame a bit onto my group all because 2 people out of the 13 came at 8pm when our reservation was at 7:30pm, which didn’t actually affect anything anyways because we were ordering apps and drinks before they got there and then once they did arrive our server didn’t come back for almost AN HOUR to take our main course orders. If I ever came back here (which is unlikely), it would be for a drink and the...

The only thing good about this restaurant is the name and the atmosphere. It is absolutely stunningly beautiful and our expectations were quite high but quickly plummeted. Where do I start? It was my daughter’s birthday but also Valentine’s Day. We made reservations for 14 people a couple of weeks in advance, but was never told that they would only have a very limited menu for that evening, so most of the items that we had looked at online and wanted, were not available. The very limited menu that they offered that night sounded pretty good though, but unfortunately it was not. All that ordered the lamb chops, ordered them medium rare, and all but one was served well done. My daughter ordered short ribs, not knowing that they were cooked in cinnamon, which she is highly allergic to. When she told the server of her allergy and sent the short ribs back, he suggested the lamb shank for her, and when it was brought to the table, it too, had been cooked with cinnamon. The waiter then argued with us, saying that the chef told him there was no cinnamon in it, but that is the first thing I tasted when I tried it, and I work at a cooking school/catering company as a chef myself. My son is a sommelier and has a very acute sense of taste and smell, and he agreed that there was a lot of cinnamon in this dish as well. My son decided he would take those to go and she ordered the salmon which did not have cinnamon on it. All of the orders came out at staggered times and the two people that ordered salmon had to wait over 40 minutes after everyone else had been served for their dishes to come out and when they finally came out, they were cold! Random salads were brought to the table without being ordered. Even though we sent them back, they made their way onto our bill, which we disputed at the end. They also forgot one of the appetizers that we ordered so it came out after most of us had already eaten. It was a variety of spreads, but it was brought with no bread to spread them on. It then took forever to get pita to the table. During the entire evening, the waiter kept pouring still water into glasses of sparkling water, and vice versa. We felt really bad for the waiter, because not only did he have our 14 top table, he had approximately five or six other tables too. Later, when the manager came over to us, he did apologize, but said that they did not expect this much of a turn out so they were severely understaffed. I don’t know how they did not expect it when they required reservations in advance. I and my children have all worked at restaurants most of our lives and we know that it should be properly staffed, and if it falls through, then some servers can be cut and sent home. It was just very poor management, very poor, cooking skills, and very poor service. Needless to say, we will not be returning there. There are so many incredible restaurants in the Miami and Fort Lauderdale areas, there’s no reason to waste your money at Zoe, unless you want great pictures because it is very very beautiful. PS. When they brought out the to go bag, it was a cheap 😢 smiley face plastic thank you bag! This is supposed to be a nice...

My experience at Zoi was subpar. I went to this restaurant for a birthday celebration and once I arrived I was escorted to my table. The ambience was lovely but I had asked my server about the water we were drinking. I noticed it was bottled and wanted to ask if we could switch to tap water since we did not want to pay for still water. When I raised my concern to the server I asked him what the difference was between the bottled and the tap water and he told me that "the tap water comes from the sink" with a sour attitude. I asked him if we could switch to tap since we didn't want to pay for several bottles of water for our 10-person party. After this moment our servers attitude completely changed and he was very cold with us. He brought us the tap water we requested and it had debris in it. We told him there was debris in the water and he took the water away but did not refill our glasses for the rest of the stay. We ordered one round of alcoholic drinks and one of the alcoholic drinks we ordered also had debris in it. We wanted to order more rounds of drinks but our server only came back to our table to get our food order (we were not ready for the next round) and ask if the food came out okay (we had to get his attention before he left to order one more round at that point). The food was expensive for mediocre quality. It was fine but it was not worth the prices and definitely not worth feeling like our server wanted nothing to do with us because we switched our water option to the free one. After we finished our food he came with the drinks but didn't even serve them to us. Another nicer young woman served us the drinks. At another point an entirely different woman helped refill our water and buss out table. Our server had left us alone for at least 40 minutes straight. Our entire party had to continuously extend their paid parking meters in the meantime. We had wanted to get dessert to celebrate my friends birthday but we had already been waiting so long that it was not worth it to order dessert, wait for it, and then wait 40 minutes longer after we are done to pay our bills. We wanted to separate our bills and he did not even give us a copy of our checks or show us the itemized receipt. We were simply shown the screen to sign and tip extra if we wanted to. We were never given the servers name because he basically refused to speak to us and any interaction we had was extremely dry and cold anytime he was required to interact with us and gave the absolute bare minimum service he could. Terrible experience. I am never recommending this restaurant to anyone else I meet. The atmosphere and the performances were the highlights of my visit but I come to a restaurant to be treated kindly by the staff and eat delicious food and got neither. Extremely...