AperiBar — Restaurant in New York

As someone who's been in restaurant & hospitality/customer service industry pretty much my whole life, I was hugely disappointed by the dinner experience (family of 4 with 2 kids). The greetings from the host was good and pretty much went downhill from there. We got seated and then completely got ignored by literally all the staff working in that side of the dining room. A total of 3 uniformed servers and 3 non-uniformed hostess/servers and none of them bothered to make eye contact to greet us, offer menus or water for a solid 10 mins. Place was normal Thursday busy but no excuse for these basics at a mid-tier restaurant. The worst is the tall non-uniformed staff in the red shirt who was setting up the table right beside us a foot away, then sat a new customer down, got them menus, water and the whole mine yards but failed to even notice us sitting there without anything or trying to make eye contact with him. Total joke and complete lack of awareness or maybe intentionally ignoring us. He would be the first one to go if I was management. If he is part of ownership then its even worse. After a bit I had to pull one of the waiter from another table to ask if this is a self serve restaurant or if anyone else is assigned to us. Timothy was kind enough to take our order and put it through and even asked if we would like all the food out together to which I replied no, whatever is ready can come out so we can feed the kids ahead. From there a steak, pasta and pizza took about 30 mins to come out. Pasta and gnocchi was way under seasoned, steak was decent and pizza too salty. Just baffled by the 4.9 ratings at this point thinking there might be a lot of fake reviews. Restaurant comped us 2 glasses of wine to try to make up for the horrible experience but I honestly would've gladly paid for those for a proper dinner experience. For us regular visitors to New York and Time Square area, this was a terrible choice for us. We thought we did our due diligence picking a good resto to try but turned out to be a terrible choice...

We popped in from Time Square - and this place, honestly…it felt like we were cheating :)

A rare New York paradox: authentic Italian food that didn’t require a Broadway budget. Do yourself a favor and order the Skillet Pollo — when the waiter brought it to me, he affirmed the selection, saying “prepare to be amazed!”

It wasn’t shy, a double stack of chicken on a throne of creamy farro that couldn’t prevent my friends from reaching across the table. The dish practically demanded to be shared! The bacon cameo caught me by surprise, sitting delightfully atop the chicken breast, initially fooling me as a thin slice of tomato.

The portions weren’t short on the protein, and the drinks were poured generously! We didn’t sit at a traditional table (like most customers) but Katie turned the bar into a living room…and the tall boys into recliners. We had paid our bill and prepared for departure, but the friendly ambiance compelled us to stay a bit longer and have a final round thanks to Katie’s hospitality.

For a city that never sleeps, this crew won’t sleep on hospitality. My phone died and they set up a charger on the outlet so that I could navigate my way home, and they assured us that our comfort and convenience was their expectation and nightly rhythm.

A round trip flight to the homeland is expensive and a visit to cinque terra ain’t cheap — so treat yourself to “La Dolce Vida” in high definition —- it’ll be an Italian detour without the airfare. A meal here can help you embrace a trip to the Big Apple without feeling like a tourist...

Today in Manhattan I was craving a great NYC Pizza, just a block from Bryant Park on W 41st I noticed AperiBar NYC in the lobby of LUMA Hotel Times Square and I'm beyond happy I stopped in.

Upon entering I smelled their fresh cuisine and especially fresh pizza being made inside. Then when learning this chic Italianesque Restaurant & Cocktail Bar is one of the many successful nationwide Restaurants owned by American Chef Charlie Palmer including the Famous Charlie Palmer Steak IV also in Times Square I had a feeling a delightful Pizza would be presented.

I went with their Fennel Pork Sausage, Tomato, Onion and Fresh Mozzarella Pizza accomponied with a unique glass pourer filled with Mike's Hot Honey. I was recomended to drizzle some on the crust and I'm happy I listened. Watch my great drizzle application! People who know Pizza should be able to see the amazing Crust and quality ingredients. Let me assure you the taste was heavenly.

I also was very impressed with their custom specialty cocktails and had a "I Need That" Gin, Rosemary, Cucumber, Lime.

I cannot wait to go back and enjoy their cuisine and was advised their fish is beyond fresh, imported from the Seas of Greece!

AperiBar in Midtown/Times Square Manhattan has been Strongly Recommended by Johnny C The Pizza Guy! Katie was also amazing and being from NJ was an added plus! Also, if your taking the bus to or from Port Authority it's an 8 minute...