Lorenzo’s Restaurant, Bar & Cabaret — Restaurant in New York

We attended the Bee Gees Gold show, bought tickets months in advance. Had to drive a good distance from Maryland so we got a room as well. When we bought the tickets we were told the dinner was not included in the tickets (order off an al-la-carte menu). About a week before the show my wife and I decided that we would rather have dinner earlier in the day so I called and asked “do we have to buy dinner, what if we just want drinks or something?” Was told that this was not a problem, order as much or as little as you want just like a restaurant. The day before the show comes, my wife asked me to double check with them so we can be sure of our plans. Call Lorenzo’s again, asked my question. The staff member wasn’t sure, said ‘let me get somebody’ who can answer my question. Another person comes on the phone, we had a long back and forth conversation, are you sure it isn’t like a comedy club with a 2 drink minimum? What if we just want to snack on appetizers? Was assured that all was fine, not a problem, order as much or as little as you like. Secure in the knowledge that we checked twice, we drove to Staten Island, had an early dinner, came on time for the show (7:30 for show at 9:30). Order drinks and shrimp cocktail. The place is chaos, loud, packed shoulder to shoulder. We wait. And wait. 45 minutes later the waiter notices us and says ‘you still waiting on shrimp cocktail?’ yes we are. And we wait, and wait, and at 9:00 I go find him and say to just cancel the shrimp, and I’m getting my drinks from the bar as we haven’t seen anyone else to get them either. Now suddenly we have sorts of attention! The manager comes over and argues with us that buying a full dinner is required (this is after being seated for an hour and a half). I told him this was not acceptable and not my problem as I had confirmed this by phone twice in the past week. His response “Did you get the name of the person you talked to”. No – and not my responsibility to make sure your staff is properly trained and knows the rules. And if you either printed on the advertisement or ticket purchase information that dinner was required we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I won’t bother with the rest of the conversation/argument, but in the end we are very unhappy with our experience at Lorenzo’s and certainly won’t be returning. Because we are cheap? NO, we dropped plenty on the trip and would have happily paid for dinner (or even better, charge $150 a person and include the dinner). It’s that we don’t appreciate being lied to and then argued with about it. Would you? By the way, we saw many people sending their food back, and the table next to us received their dinners 5 minutes...

Decent food, nice piano music, but the atmosphere of a diner :(

Visited Lorenzo's with my wife on 02/16/24 for a romantic dinner with live piano music. Unfortunately, the visit turned out to be a great disappointment :( It's very sad as we planned this for a while and the place indeed had all the potential to live to the expectations. But it didn't :( The food was decent; service was excellent and flawless; piano music was great, the guy played non-stop for 1.5h! However, there were two big tables which got occupied with large families shortly after we came. One was just next us with about 8 people and the other was one table away with about 15 people including children and even babies. Very soon it became so noisy we could hardly hear the piano. All these people didn't care about the music at all being fully occupied with their family gatherings. And then a baby started crying... We felt like sitting in a busy diner rather than an upscale romantic place :( The setting, the piano, the waiters in suits, the prices were not in line with what was going on. It was weird.

The food was pretty good but falling short of 5 stars on all dishes except soup. Appetizers Bread basket with butter, olive oil, and ricotta - this one was on the house and it was excellent. Fresh, warm, perfect. Roasted Peppers with Fresh Mozzarella - this was a special of the day. The peppers tasted fine, but were most likely from a can, not freshly roasted. Mozzarella slices were quite tasteless with no dressing on top. We had to add salt on them the get some taste. Rooftop Kale Salad - this was fine, but could benefit from a bit more goat cheese and walnuts. It was mostly kale... Mushroom Soup - this was a special of the day. The soup was absolutely delicious! One of the best mushroom soups I ever had in a restaurant. This was the only flawless dish of the evening.

Mains Slow Simmered Beef Short Rib - the portion was good size, with nice presentation, sauce, and garnishes. The meat however was quite dry, certainly not melting in the mouth as the rightly cooked short ribs should be. On one side the meat was actually burned! :( I could request a replacement, but really didn't want to go into this and wait while my wife was eating. The salt level was on a higher side - ok, but on a border line. Basil Pesto Crusted Salmon - it was pretty good, though on dry side, not as juicy and tender as you would expect in such a place.

Dessert Warm Apple Crumb - the tart with ice-cream was ok, nothing special. The white stuff they added around would be better off a whipped cream, but instead it tasted like a super sweet liquid marshmallow.

We cannot recommend this restaurant. They need to figure out...

Did the five star reviews get paid to post? I can't believe anyone would vote this place past 2 stars. If they weren't attached to the bar, then they would probably go under. The worst and only bad meal during my week in Staten Island. The veal scallopini pizzaiola with red wine to drink sounded nice and waiter was kind when he was present. That is the extent of the good that came from this meal. I ordered right away and waited 45 mins for my Veal which was not prepared as listed above. It tasted like shoe leather as it was cllearly microwaved to heat it up. I sent it back. Not to mention that they just sent veal with what they called marsala wine and penne (Not what I ordered). food runner smirked at me and said don't worry we will fix it. He never returned with all of the other ingredients that we're missing from my order. Besides, you can't just bring the rest of the ingredients to the table for veal scallopini pizzaiola. The kind waiter apologized and sent me a flank steak they told me was supposed to be a ribeye. It was medium well, not medium rare. The bus boy then clears my plate when I'm halfway through the meal and shrugged "sorry". The manager never approached me other than to drop the "ribeye" and say "sorry for the veal". outsided of that she ignored me and wouldn't look me in the eye. I was so steamed and still hungry $85 later so I took the rest of my wine, paid and left to sit at the bar to commiserate with another guest who got the same treatment. I was so hungry I got a cliff bar from the front desk. It tasted way better. Powered eggs, floppy bacon, instant coffee, and cold sandbag potatoes for breakfast. Choose something from the front...