Fiore's Cafe — Restaurant in Ocala

I met Efrain while working on his property, we conversed for a short time, and eventually began speaking about our professions. He told me he was a cook at his family restaurant, which piqued my interest. Turns out his family restaurant is a must taste stop in ocala! The style is Italian, and there are many Italian places in ocala, I've been to many of them. There are none like Fiore's Cafe! As soon as you open the door you are hit with the smell of fresh Italian cuisine. The decor is gorgeous, wonderfully decorated and the place settings are that of a 5 star restaurant! The food is fantastic, my family enjoyed the calamari starter and salads with fresh garlic knots that are second to none! The calamari was fresh, light and crispy with a very healthy portion sufficient for a party of 7 to all enjoy. Two of us ordered the seafood ravioli (made fresh in house, not boxed) one had the baked manicotti which was again fresh made in house and delicious. Another in our party ordered the baked ziti, which had an awesome taste, light but perfectly seasoned tomato sauce that was non the slightly sweet side, with no acidic bite that you would expect. Did I mention everything is made in house?! The two children in the party had kids spaghetti and Penne Alfredo which both got sampled by me and were on another level of wow, especially for kids meals.. just absolutely fantastic! The last meal ordered was the meat ravioli, it disappeared before I realized what was on the plate! Again another out of this world meal! We finished off with a tiramisu for the table, again made from scratch and delicious! We are trying to find another reason to head up to Fiore's but we really don't need any! hopefully we see you there too! Great family owned local business that blows everything else out of the way! Do not hesitate to pull into the parking lot and walk to the door, you won't be able to leave without enjoying what this family is serving! Thank you Fiore's for showing my family what...

A friend recommended Fiore's so my wife and I decided to give it a try. The restaurant is very loud. The tables are close together and it's difficult to talk to people across the table, unless you just yell like everyone else seemed to do. The service was far from attentive. After being seated, our server walked by our table about fifteen times, never acknowledging us until finally stopping to take our drink order. We ordered an appetizer and said we would order our entree when the appetizer arrived. The appetizer arrived, we ate it, and waited about fifteen minutes before our server returned to take our order. The food was hit and miss. Firstly, if the owners are reading this, please install a water filter system, or change the filter if you have one. The water and the tea both tasted exactly like Ocala tap water, chlorine and all. Completely undrinkable. We had the calamari as an appetizer. It had absolutely no flavor whatsoever. The breading wasn't seasoned at all. The tomato sauce also had zero flavor. Very, very disappointing. The Caesar salads were about average, but didn't have very much parmesan. They were, in no way, shape, or form, worth the $4.95 up-charge--each. My wife had shrimp alfredo and I had chicken rollatini with risotto. Both were excellent. In fact, my entree was one of the best Italian dishes I've ever eaten. Both entrees were well-seasoned and arrived to the table piping hot. We each ordered a slice of cheesecake to go. We should have eaten them at the restaurant so that we could have returned them after the first bite and gotten our money back. They were absolute mush and among the worst pieces of cheesecake I've ever had. After one bite, they went into the garbage. Overall, we felt that the bad outweighed the good and we would not return. The restaurant charges premium prices ($105 before tip with no alcoholic drinks) but does not deliver food or service commensurate with...

These good reviews don't make any sense. The garlic knots are good and it's nice that you get one with your dinner. The good things stop there. The service stops there. There's a huge language barrier with the staff. We spoke to 3 different people and it seemed like they all struggled to understand us.

The waiter didn't tell us about all the specials. We heard the full list when he told another table after we ordered. My wife said no onions in her salad. I then said, no onions for my salad either. Salad comes a few minutes later. Both full of onions. I tell him we didn't want onions and he said "oh, you didn't want onion".

At the same time I ordered I asked for lemons for my water and my wife's iced tea. He said ok. By the time I told him about the onions in my salad, we had no lemons so I once again asked him for lemons. 5 minutes goes by. No lemons. A woman came over to clear the salad plates. Her English was very limited but she got the gist of what I was asking when I asked her if the restaurant had lemons. She got them right away. The waiter never attempted to bring them, apologize or anything.

Well as long as the food is good, we could overlook the service right? Our food was nuclear hot. So hot it was still steaming over 10 minutes later which was odd. I think it's because they microwaved them. I had the chicken parm and my wife had the eggplant parm. They both tasted microwaved. Very mushy.

It's difficult to find good Italian food outside of southeast Florida but this was extra bad. I just don't understand how the reviews are so good when our experience was...