Limoncello South — Restaurant in New Smyrna Beach

We are the traveling Motor Coach Gourmets. We frequent restaurants in many different cities and review them.

Visited: Saturday, 09/21/19. We were expecting to have a nice Italian meal based on the reviews and menu. Upon walking in you’ll see the nice décor, cleanliness and friendly atmosphere. This was the old Spanish Grill location so not much has changed.

Tracy and I sat down and ordered 2 glasses of a Cabernet. The waiter was friendly & brought our wine glasses, bread & oil with sun dried tomatoes. There was about 4-5 ounces which filled about ¼ of the glass all for the tidy sum of $8.25! I was shocked to see how little wine was in their house wine glass.

The Italian bread was very good as was the oil and sun-dried tomato dip. I asked for some balsamic vinegar to add to it and the waiter brought us out about a tablespoon of it in a small dish. Yes, a tablespoon.

We started off by ordering the Frito Misto. The marinara sauce was bland & very watery. I asked for some crushed red pepper. The waiter brought out about a tablespoon worth. I added it all to the marinara. Nothing seemed to help. The calamari were soggy, shrimp were large & very appetizing but unfortunately were soggy & full of oil. I won’t describe the rest of the dish. The manager came over & removed it from our check. They did the right thing.

Tracy ordered Chicken Picatta & I ordered their Frutto di Mare with a slight variation. I asked for no mussels, with rigatoni instead of linguine & a spicy marinara sauce instead of the seafood broth. Why I ask for marinara after ordering it on the appetizer is a mystery to me; probably muscle memory. I reiterated that I wanted it spicy & not to be afraid of making it spicy.

The waiter brought out some more bread. I had to ask for more oil and tomatoes. A restaurant with prices this high while trying to create an upscale atmosphere, they fail miserably.

Our meal arrived and we dug in. The shrimp are huge, clams were very tiny, about the size of a quarter (I kid you not); very little calamari. Unfortunately, the marinara was not at all spicy (especially after reiterating how spicy I wanted it) & quite frankly, quite disgusting. It was full of oil or just plain very greasy.

The rigatoni was like mush, far too soft for an Italian restaurant. The macaroni was pre-cooked; there were clumps of pasta stuck together. Hardly upscale.

The waiter stopped by and asked how was everything to which I just grunted, ok. I didn’t want any confrontation. I sensed the waiter knew we were not enjoying our meal. I could have pushed the issue and left without paying but I wasn’t in the mood for the drama but I should have.

Tracy rarely complains but said her meal was not very good as the chicken was not a high grade and definitely not organic. The artichoke hearts were not edible as they were too hard. Tracy knows chicken!

We ate very little and asked for the check. The waiter asked if we wanted boxes to which we both replied in unison, NO. He brought the check, I added a tip, paid and $80 later we left.

I felt nauseas from all the grease, oils and/or butters in the sauces. I don’t know what all these positive reviews are used to but this place prides themselves in making great martinis. I think these people are all too blitzed to know a good meal. I may be wrong and what do I know. I do know that we will never return even if offered a free meal. We just didn’t like the food, period.

There are far too many decent Italian restaurants here in New Smyrna Beach to have to suffer through a meal at this place. They had better step up their game if they expect to survive.

I am very saddened to have to leave this review as I truly enjoy a good Italian meal (other than at home of course) but I call it as I taste it. God bless you if you enjoy this joint but we’ll pass. Tracy, bring me an alka-seltzer. I...

We arrived around 5:15 and were seated immediately. Our server introduced himself, took our drink and appetizer orders and told us about the specials. Perfect. He then returned with our drinks, appetizer, bread and tasty oil for dipping and took our orders around 5:40; two pasta dishes and three specials. Perfect. The rest of the of the dining experience went wrong from there.

The first sign something was wrong happened about 20 minutes after our order was taken. Our server came by and dropped off dishes for the shells and he then disappeared; as in gone. We guessed that his shift was over at 6:00 and another server was going to take his place. As we watched two specials go by that should have been ours, along with a party of four seated about 30 minutes after us receiving their dinners, we realized something was wrong. We were told by multiple people that our server had to leave because of an emergency but would be back soon. However, NOBODY REPLACED HIM, so we just sat there very confused.

Since we were the only table in the restaurant not eating, it became blatantly obvious that we never got our food. We could see employees discussing the situation and going back and forth into the kitchen. It was about 6:30 when we finally got two pasta dishes and one filet mignon special with the two seafood specials still missing; 10 minutes later they arrived. The dinners were nice, albeit very late, except for the filet mignon. I ordered it medium-well and it showed up rare (seared outside, bloody inside). If you offer it, shouldn't you be able to cook it to order? I ended up sending it back to the kitchen and had them box it for take home since the rest of my party had finished eating.

As a consolation to this nightmare dinner that would never end, they offered me a free dessert. Really? And since the evening was a celebration of a birthday, good friends, and a new baby arriving, our server threw in a second dessert. Oh joy...

Conclusion: We've been to Limoncello South before and each time the service is getting worse. It is apparent their staff does not work as a team. If you do go, get there early when they're not too busy so you don't get lost in the hustle. Unfortunately for them, there's other options available so we won't be going back to Limoncello South anytime soon.

(Reservation Saturday, March 13, party of 5 for a...

I wish to begin by saying I admit I did not have a reservation but hear me out...

I surprised my family on Christmas Eve in Indiana by giving them a Christmas present of a vacation here in New Smyrna which we have coming to for over 20 years. I packed everyone in the car and drove 14 hours and arrived here at 5:00. Unfortunately the one thing we didn't think of was a Christmas dinner in the excitement. This is where unfortunately the tale gets dark. I came to your restaurant and hoping to have or make a Xmas miracle. I met an older gentleman at 5:30 after observing several empty tables in the front and some in the back and had asked if there was anyway that they could accommodate four people for dinner anytime tonight and I was met with a flat rejection of "no".

Not even a conversation or anything else. Just "no". I have travelled to many nations and meet many cultures and I have yet to be turned away from a restaurant/stall/cart/food truck- who has a customer or a customers( in particular a hard-pressed one on a holiday) Who wants to eat and seeks help. Kindness does go a long way as does human accommodation. Well that's what happened and wait I forgot abt this ending.. the gentleman just turned his back and walked away from me and told me I should have had a reservation. I don't know who he is to the store or the restaurant but it was extremely hurtful to have that happen to me and my family on Christmas and everyone speaks of the kindness of Christmas. I'm glad your restaurant is doing so well after the pandemic that you can send away a customer who probably would have dropped over $300 on his table that evening for his family to celebrate finding a restaurant for Christmas, but it didn't happen one of your competitors was kind enough to feed my family a nice meal and send the sun with extra dessert. Just my thoughts on how you can maybe improve.

Thank you again...