Pavesi Restaurant — Restaurant in Morristown

If there was a half star... I would give it.

I generally do not like to write poor reviews. Sometimes people are not having a good day or things just aren't working efficiently in the kitchen. I get it. However, my experience on NYE was devastating. My dining experience at Provesi that evening was the worst I have EVER HAD in a restaurant. I have eaten at Provesi once before a year or so ago, and it was nice. This time... not even close to okay. I felt disrespected, manipulated, and mocked.

My friend made a reservation for NYE 3 weeks in advance for a party of 19. Then, the week of NYE, he called to see if they were able to accommodate 2 more. The manager said it wouldn't be a problem. Okay - great.

Here are a list of issues that happened that evening:

1.) The reservation was for 8:00 and we did not sit until 8:50. The manager continued to say for 15 minutes, that they needed 5 more minutes because the table was being set for us. The wait staff worked so hard and diligently once we were seated. These young men were excellent. However, they set up the table as we sat there. So, thanks for lying to our faces, manager. We sat downstairs (what a cool looking room with rock walls... felt like you were in the basement --- oh wait, we were!). A family was there down (huge party) and so they sat two huge tables at the same time. Turns out their reservation was for 8:00 as well. I can't believe 2 big parties waited almost an hour to be sat. One party of 20 (one of my friends left) and one party of 23. Too bad the max capacity for the basement seating was 38.

2.) The server told my one friend who was ordering apps that they offer family size. My friend asked if we should do that, and so the server said that he would because our party was so big. The apps on the NYE menu they provided were $11 a piece. When we got our bill we were charged $100 for 2 plates of calamari, $80 for 2 plates of eggplant rollatini, and $80 for 2 plates of hot antipasta. ??!!!!??!!!!!!!!

3.) The dinner prices were inflated. Understandable to jack up your prices a bit for NYE, but then you should deliver with the value of the meal. The food was terrible. It was not hot, and it looked terrible. My boyfriend got the shrimp scampi and it was oily, cold, and had 6 small shrimp on it with a hand-full of pasta. His plate was $28. I got chicken for $25 and it was one chicken cutlet, 5 beans, 2 slices of carrot, and half a white potato. The server told my friend that the chicken came with pasta, which it did not.

4.) The menu had multiple misspellings (kind of funny, but also horrifying). Beef was beff. (eh, who cares, right?) Well broccoli rabe was spelled as "broccoli rape" throughout the menu.

5.) When we received the bill for $815, we talked to the manager about the outrageous app prices. (Did I mention this bill did not include booze?) He told us there was nothing he could do. The server stood in the corner smirking at us and laughed to a co-worker as we gathered cash for the bill from our friends at the table. The server eventually did take $60 off our bill. How he was able to do this and the manager was not is beyond me. I got a funny feeling he played us.

I will NEVER return, and I do hope that for those of you who held out and read this entire scathing review, you will not go either. There are so many incredible Italian restaurants in Morristown that Provesi isn't worth your...

My wife and I, along with my friend and his fiancé, had dinner at Pavesi last month. My wife and I had been raving about the restaurant to them for weeks, as our prior experiences have been top notch. This time however, I was very disappointed with Pavesi and I highly doubt that I will return.

The issues began not too long after we were seated at our table. As we attempted to simply order our appetizers, the waiter insisted that we needed to put in our entrée order at the same time. We hadn't been at the table more than five minutes and already felt rushed. I understand that the restaurant was busy at the time, but he was harsh in his delivery and was unfriendly throughout the entire evening.

We decided to order the "crab cakes" special that he presented. The dish was $18, and ended up only being prepared with ONE crab cake. I immediately looked around the restaurant to get someone's attention - I caught eyes with what appeared to be the manager/owner. He came over and I voiced my frustration that the dish was prepared with only one crab cake and we weren't made aware of that. He offered to make us another one, but I declined and told him my concern was more so on principle.

Upon receiving the entrees, they we noticeably smaller in portion than the previous time we attended Pavesi (which was only a couple of months prior). This further soured my mood as I felt we had already been gipped on the crab cake appetizer. Not to mention the $12 bruschetta only came with 4 bite-sized pieces. Not much of an appetizer for a total of $30.

After paying the bill I approached the manager/owner again and said, "first off let me tell you that your food is arguably the best in all of Morristown". My intention was not to be attacking, but rather to provide my honest feedback. I proceeded to say "but I don't feel its fair to charge $18 for a single crab cake, and for your server not to disclose that to the table".

Instead of an apology or another sort of remedy, he says "Crab cake appetizer is only ever served with one crab cake, and I challenge you to find a restaurant serving it for less than $18".

Last weekend, my friend that attended the aforementioned dinner sent me the picture below - $18 dish of 3 jumbo crab cakes from Spanos in Point Pleasant. Challenge accepted.

Once again, I'm highly disappointed by the response from Pavesi that evening. Like I said, I was thrilled by my previous experiences but unfortunately I do not think...

We went to Pavesi for a second time because we enjoyed the first time experience here after. What we experienced the first time was not consistent with our second time visit. Firstly, the portions were much smaller than we remembered it. Salad was small and we didn't feel the dish equated to the price we paid for it. Secondly, the quality was poor this time around. The potatoes tasted like it came from a box. My vongole dish was full of empty clam shells. I dug into the dish and only found 50% of what I expected floating in the watered-down sauce. Thirdly, the service was lacking. The server kept forgetting our requests (no onion, black cracked pepper, no fresh parmesan, didn't refill water, forgot pen with receipt etc) and to top it off, servers kept dropping plates and cutlery making loud clanks by the kitchen door where we sat (butterfingers!). It ruined an otherwise, nice ambiance with live music. Finally, when we decided to complain about the quality of food, the owner comes and sits over at our table. With a condescending tone, he asks if I've ever made clam dishes. "I can give you a dozen clams right now to replace that. If you have ever boiled clams you know that they fall out of the shells". I'm convinced that i was given a lot of empty shells. Only found 50% of the clams that should have been on my plate and I counted them. When we complained about the mashed potatoes, the chef came out and invited us to go into the kitchen to see that they use "real potatoes". Then he proceeded to offer a hand-made cheesecake, apologized and stated that "customers are always right". He tried to smooth things over and change our experience but with the owner's tone we were turned off. We like to support local businesses and we want to remain supportive of this restaurant but we were both pretty turned off my the experience. If it was just a server or a chef, we could have been more tolerant but from the owner to treat a customer this way, was...