Roberto's — Restaurant in New York

Seems like a good restaurant with classic italian fare. I think we must have come on an off night. One of our appetizers was missing a key ingredient that we were really looking forward to. When we asked a server, he said we were mistaken. He even brought a menu to show us that we were wrong. The menu still listed the ingredient, so did the menu we looked at while waiting at the bar, so does the menu currently on the website. Then he said that the dish used to come with it, but then the chef decided the ingredient was not necessary since it makes the dish look too messy. Sounded like a b.s. answer which I did not appreciate. The seafood appetizer we ordered came out cold and was overly salted, and I love salt. We looked forward to dipping the complimentary bread in the white wine sauce, but it was not enjoyable. Sopping a good bread in a delicious sauce is one of my favorite parts of a good italian meal. There were a fair amount of mussels that never opened up, (which means they were dead and should not be eaten) which is fine, that happens, it just added insult to injury. It’s not like the portion was heaping and that the closed mussels were not visible on the way from the kitchen or while the server portioned them out. I would not care about picking out some duds if the dish was hot and tasted good. The portion of sliced bread loaf was good but the focaccia style bread was hard and stale. The pasta we ordered was recommended by our server and was indeed the best item we had during our visit. It came to the table in a tin foil pouch. It felt a little gimmicky, more about the show of cutting open the pouch at the table than really adding much to the dish. The server offered fresh parm cheese but forgot to come back with it until we waited and asked again. I feel like this restaurant can, and probably does, do better. Maybe we ordered poorly. I prefer to write positive reviews and keep my mouth shut for bad ones, but I felt very disappointed, especially considering that the price point is pretty high and this was a splurge meal for us. I write this with the sincere hope of seeing them improve and...

My husband and I arrive 10 minutes ahead of reservation to enjoy what we thought would be a nice dinner. We check in with the hostess and are asked to wait one minute. The hostess then proceeds to attend to a steady flow of new guests arriving after us. She checks in and seats a party 10 (ok we think, they probably have a special table), then another party of 2 then 4-- has she forgotten about us? It's now been 10 minutes of waiting and its our reservation time. We inquire whether our table is ready as the hostess makes her way back to the front after seating the party of 4. She asks "what was your name again", proceeds to attend to and sit another party of 6 that has arrived in the meantime, then finally comes back to us. It's been nearly 20 minutes now, but we're excited to finally be heading to our table. We see a nice small table with 2 seats...the hostess continues right past it, hooks a right and starts leading us downstairs to the basement. We begin to complain, and are told the table is not available to us. We begin to walk out and say this has been a "1 star" experience and magically the table becomes available, and we are offered a slew of generic excuses-- we needed to wait for our entire party to arrive before we could be seated (it was only the 2 of us), it was the hostesses first week, etc. This place isn’t as hospitable to people of color. My husband and I felt very uncomfortable after the entire encounter so we left anways- hungry and having wasted our time. We’ve never had this experience before & recommend you don’t waste...

Highly disappointed in our experience here. Save your time and money by going elsewhere.

Hospitality: We arrived 30 minutes before our reservation time and they were unable to seat us (fair) but it would be a couple of minutes. Then, when it finally was a reservation time, the hostess rudely told us that we would have to continue to wait and she refused to give us an estimated time. A different front of house staff member assured us that the food would be well worth the wait. After 10 more minutes and one more frustrating interaction with the hostess, we were finally seated. The waiter was nice, and he tried his best to be accommodating. Unfortunately, it took over an hour for the entrees to arrive at our table.

Food: I received absolutely undercooked eggplant in my penne melitzana. Again, the waiter kindly understood the issue and offered to bring me something else. Unfortunately, then I received undercooked spaghetti that was quite chewy. He offered us a dessert and sadly, we were given a dry and underwhelming chocolate volcano cake.

Atmosphere: It's a busy restaurant with tables awkwardly close to each other. Crowding at the entryway was an issue. Not great vibes. They also play a fairly creepy song at max volume for birthday celebrations.

I don't like leaving negative reviews but I feel like anyone coming here...