Bar Firenze — Restaurant in New York

I’m kind of torn writing this review because many things had the potential to be good, but the few things that went wrong really put me off so I split the difference at 3 stars.

I came here for an afternoon lunch in a party of four. I’ve been to Eataly in the past and enjoyed my experience. What changed was trying to visit an Italian restaurant on a diet with specific restrictions.

The first issue was my order - a salad - arrived almost 10 minutes after the rest of my groups hot pasta dishes.

I couldn’t snack on the complimentary bread since I’m eating gluten and dairy free.

I dove into the salad starved, only to discover it contained walnuts - which I specifically asked to be removed when placing the order. (The waiter admitted his mistake. )

To make matters worse, the “poached tuna” was absolutely disgusting. I had googled it prior to ordering, and I was expecting something different. I thought it was fresh tuna, poached to warm it up a bit. I got slimy and extremely salty pieces of fish. Not Osterias fault but it led to me decide not to try to eat the rest of the meal after a few bites.

Management decided to treat my table to deserts. A tirimisu topped with chocolate and some ice cream. I’m dairy free and allergic to chocolate. Not to mention I’m on a f*ing diet which is why I ordered salad in the first place.

In the end they removed my salad from the bill, which is good since it was wrong and I didn’t eat a meal. My personal experience was 1 star as I left hungrier than I arrived.

But ... My party had three wonderful pasta dishes, yummy cocktails, and complimentary fresh bread, and deserts (courtesy of my order mix up). They even took special care to check for my fathers food allergy and when it got too sunny they lowered the shades. Which for them would’ve been a 5-star experience (had I not been hangry at the...

I am not one to complain, but I was very disappointed in this restaurant. I have frequented many of Lidia's restaurants before so I had high hopes. First of all the service was terrible. The waitress never introduced herself, and I had to ask her for water several times. She brought over a wooden board for bread, but we never received the bread till after our dinners were served. The olive oil that comes with the bread is very good, but make sure you ask them to fill the very small bowl, because it is not enough for 3 people. My wife had a glass of wine and the waitress took her empty glass away after appetizers and never asked her if she would like another glass of wine with her dinner. My mom's sparkling water cost more than my wife's glass of wine, which is absolutely absurd. The grilled octopus was tasty, but a bit too salty for my taste buds. The red snapper was not cooked thoroughly. I did not care for the puree with the snapper. My mom had the linguine and clams and she did say it was fresh and tasty. There is no salt, pepper or cheese on tables. You need to ask for this and then have to wait. Apparently, after dinner the shift changed and the waitress that we had left and we had someone else. We had coffee, cappuccino and dessert. There was no milk for coffee and so we asked the server to please bring it. He forgot and continued to clean tables around us. By the time we received the milk the coffee was getting cold and no spoons were given with the coffee to stir. I hope that this review helps the manager who is running this restaurant. This was not an off day. Not one person who waited on us was pleasant, or helpful. I would not frequent this...

Getting to the restaurant required going through most of Eataly, which was fun, seeing all the things on offer. The restaurant is situated in the corner of the building giving you great views of the 9/11 memorial area and the surrounding financial district.

Going for lunch we nonetheless decided to go for a 3-course meal.

We all started off with the octopus which was absolutely perfect. I could have eaten this dish all day long. Probably, the best preparation of octopus I've eaten.

Unfortunately, things went downhill from that point. We all went for different pastas, but none of us were thrilled by them, they were standard pasta dishes that you could get pretty much anywhere. The portion sizes weren't great and overly expensive.

For dessert the panna cotta was okay, but the accompanying side that came with it was absolutely gross. Kept trying to figure out what they were trying to achieve in terms of taste but gave up as it was totally disgusting. The chocolate dessert was okay but again nothing to shout about.

The service was pleasant and the restaurant wasn't too noisy, even though it was full.

It's just a shame the food wasn't better after the first course and the expensive prices didn't help, which turned it into a slightly...