Amali NYC — Restaurant in New York

My wife and I (2x women) had our wedding dinner in the Sopra room, Amali's event space upstairs this past August with 35x guests. Planning the event went seamless and we felt very taken care of by Michael Van Camp throughout the process. However, our experience greatly changed during / after the event.

Michael was not in attendance that evening and the on staff event person Sebastian did not bother to introduce himself during the 4x hours we were there. We opted to do drinks upon consumption for our guests; upon entering we noticed multiple bottles of wine were open / being served which we did not request, so I had then made the server aware we just wanted cocktail menus out. Hours go by, we are all having a good time; it's our wedding day so both my wife and I were pretty oblivious to anything happening. We kept seeing Veuve being poured, even into glasses that weren't fully drank (and to my 15 year old niece), and honestly assumed this was a nice gesture they were offering as we did not approve the cost for everyone to consume bottles of the most expensive champagne. Later we had discovered that one of our guests had ordered some tequila shots. The server had asked one of our friends if this was okay, and our friend told them they needed to ask the brides for permission. We were never asked but multiple $50 Casa Azul shots were served (they did top shelf, even though their cocktails don't even include top shelf). I can continue on with other complaints (including staff walking in and out / serving drinks while we read our vows), but the majority of the issue stems from how the staff handled the beverages. My wife is sober and had requested a Coca-Cola 3x times, never received it, and yet we were charged for a handful. At the end of the event we received a bill for almost double what we had anticipated per head (~$13K).

We confronted Sebastian with our concerns and were met with a un-pleasurable attitude immediately. He actually refused to give us his name for the longest time, apparently didn't have a business card and was unwilling to get us on the phone with the Manager. After pleading (including 5x of our friends / family), he finally called James Mallios. James was condescending and rude from the bat. We stood up for our selves that we did not give them permission to charge our card on file until we came to an agreement, to which they eventually agreed, apparently to shut us up, because as soon as we left our card was charged. Our wedding night was not ruined, but severely affected by the drama that took place. We tried discussing with Michael in the following days, to which we ended with no compromised solution after they only offered a very small discount. We decided to pursue disputing for a portion of the bill, of which we felt we were overcharged, approx. $4K. Michael's response was: "Our managing partner, James Mallios, is an attorney. In the event that you that you dispute your accurate bill, or post negative comments based on your unhappiness with it, please be aware that James aggressively protects the business’s rights." - Then Jame's response was: "This would be exclusive of any damages for defamation if there is an online posting. It is in everyone’s interest for this matter to not escalate and I would urge you to both: (1) reconsider Michael’s offer (for which I would ask for a short release) and (2) not doubt my resolve in pursuing this matter."

We won the dispute and got our money back! We would not recommend Amali, how they manage or handle events, and especially how they threaten lawsuits for freedom of speech. Our story is accurate and I have 35x guests to back it up and willing to share their experience. I look forward to Jame's hasty response I am sure we...

Will never ever come here again. I came here for a wedding reception and ordered Tagliatelle with bone marrow and bolognese which was $34. That wasnt the problem. The problem was that it took almost an hour to receive my food. There was a group of 20 of us and we all received our food at different times. My pasta was mediocre and such a small portion. Pasta was overcooked, the bolognese was not a bolognese but just ground up meat. Bolognese is usually a meat sauce. There was far too much oil and as if no bone marrow was used at all. The pasta was lukewarm by the time I got it and the grated Parmesan already soaked up the oil which proves that it was just sitting at the counter. One of my friends got a salmon tartare which also took 50 mins to arrive and she never received her salad. I had ordered a jack Daniels and coke. I got the drink and it was good but when it came to the bill my jack and coke was nowhere to be found. Instead there was an order for Johnnie Walker. We were confused since no one ordered that and it was the most expensive item in the bill. 3 drinks for $110??? I go up to the server who served us and tried to find out why there's Johnnie walker on the tab and he said it was mine. I never ordered that. he said that I was informed that they don't have jack daniels. no I was not. the server had the audacity to laugh and argue with me over what was said. needless to say the service was atrocious, the food subpar. The bride was extremely upset about this ordeal and most of the guests at the reception who didn't order a gyro or Mediterranean food were fairly upset over the food quality and service as well. Now I normally don't do reviews but this was just...

Amali vs. FISHTAG

I dined at these two restaurants four days apart, and found Amali better in every way. Granted, I was at Amali on a Tuesday night when the restaurant was not too busy vs. Friday night at FISHTAG--I will hazard that the service was off because of the volume... We also preferred Amali over All'onda in Union Square.

Anyway, menu offerings were similar, but...

THE OCTOPUS HERE IS OFF THE CHARTS! $18 "spanish octopus" (castelveltrano olives, yukon potatoes, wild oregano) was way better than FISHTAG's (sorry). It was also pre-cut into little forkable bite-sized pieces which made it look less scary Kraken.

We LOVED the $17 "warm hen of the woods" salad (marcona almonds, shaved kohlrabi, tender greens). It was very light and summery but somehow worked for this cold winter night.

The pasta, made in-house, is very impressive. Chewy and semolina-flavorful, a shareable portion (if you get a couple starters) or enough for a meal. We had orecchiette with merguez, broccoli rabe, and fresh chili. Pasta here was also way better than

For dessert we had the ricotta doughnuts--which were like classy sugar munchkins on lemon curd. Now, any excuse to eat lemon curd is a good one. The order came with 5 doughnut holes so you can easily share it 5 ways to be less of a fatty. We actually had wanted to try the apple crostata with salted caramel gelato. Will just have to come back for it.

Very extensive wine list of about 400 wines, detailed about vintages, several nice options available even in the $40 bottle range. Seriously one of the best selection/value wine lists I've seen in midtown.

Really great. A midtown...