Alaine's Osteria — Restaurant in Palmetto Bay

Do Not bother making a reservation for a large party at Alaine's Osteria.

One month ago, I made a reservation for a party of 10 in the wine room to celebrate birthdays and family that are coming in town. The lovely young woman I spoke with confirmed that the reservation was booked and that I would need to put down a $25 deposit in order to hold the room. No problem. When offered my card, she said she would call me in a few days to collect that payment.

That never happened.

Two weeks later, I called again, and she confirmed that she still has the wine room in the back reserved for us and that we still had plenty of time for her to collect the deposit and she would call me soon. Once again, that never happened.

Yesterday afternoon, I called back, again, to provide my credit card number so there would be no issues moving forward. The woman on the phone had no idea what I was talking about, and could not find my reservation. She put a “manager” on the phone, who was then able to identify my reservation, saying it was booked and no problem and someone would be calling me in a few days to collect the deposit.

Today, someone called to tell me, sorry, but they are no longer able to let us use the wine room because someone else had paid their deposit in front of us. This is after us reserving it over a month ago.

So, after getting on the phone with another manager, we were told that there was nothing that we could do considering that we had not paid our deposit. This is the same deposit that we were told, and no less than three times that they were going to call us to collect as the date got closer.

They offered to “maybe” put us in the bar side of the room because it was a little bit more quiet. Unfortunately, this is not acceptable because we had already reserved and booked the private wine room in the back.

Moral to the story… Pay your deposit upfront, and get the name of the manager, that you spoke with, and a written copy of a receipt. Otherwise, they will sell off their spaces to the highest bidder, regardless of the fact that we are long time Palmetto Bay residence who have been frequenting the establishment since it...

Not sure what happened to one of my favorite restaurants. Made reservations to celebrate (or so we should have been) my best friend's birthday at the beginning of the month. Very, very disappointed in the entire evening ... 1 star was because the food was good and I couldn't write this without leaving a star ... but the overall dining experience was a failure.

I understand that our economy has changed a bit and don't mind paying for good service and good food, but to say that you have a "new policy" charging for "more bread" when we had already ordered 2 bottles of wine, 4 entrees, upgraded a salad to Caesar (at an additional charge) and probably would have ordered more wine if we could have gotten our waitress to pay attention to us? This is just sad. Gabriella spent more time at the computer about 3 feet away than she spent waiting on our party. Oh, and did I mention that we were charged a "sharing charge" even though we ordered 4 entrees between the 4 of us? Two of the salads came out of the kitchen followed immediately by 2 of the hot meals ... because they had not made the Caesar salad yet. When we mentioned that we had not gotten the other salad yet, Gabriella told us that she would have them hold our food and "freshen" it before they brought it back out ... really??? I made it very clear that they needed to remake the meals and not bring back reheated food. She wasn't really happy with that but what can I say?

Overall sad experience - no ice bucket for the white wine, never "served" another glass of wine after the first one, having to ask 4 times for water, sharing charge for 1 of the 4 meals, extra charge for more bread, concept of "freshened" food ... $200 not well spent. I don't usually write bad reviews and I'm sorry for the sour grapes here, but I was sorely disappointed and more than a little embarrassed. Happy occasion gone...

My husband and I visited Alaine’s for dinner on a quiet weeknight, hoping for a nice local meal. We each ordered a glass of red wine; he had the chicken parmesan, and I chose the filet mignon from the specials, which came with a side of vegetables. I requested my filet cooked medium, but unfortunately, it arrived extremely well done—tough, dry, and difficult to chew.

When I politely asked for it to be remade, the server suggested a quicker option: a pasta dish, to avoid a long wait. I appreciated the gesture and agreed. However, what happened next was incredibly disappointing. As the server went to remove my plate, I asked if I could at least keep the vegetables to nibble on while my husband ate his meal. He responded, “If you keep the vegetables, I’ll have to charge you for the full filet dish.”

I was honestly stunned. The vegetables were part of a meal that had to be returned due to a kitchen error—not my own. Denying a guest even a small portion of food in a situation like this, and threatening to charge full price for it, is a level of rigidity and poor hospitality I’ve rarely encountered. I let them take the plate.

The replacement pasta dish arrived about 15 minutes later—after my husband had already finished eating. I ended up taking it to go. The entire experience left a very bad taste in my mouth.

As a neighbor who lives just five minutes away, I was really hoping this would become a go-to spot for us. Sadly, due to the lack of basic customer care, I don’t see myself returning. Mistakes in the kitchen can happen—that’s understandable. But how a restaurant handles those moments speaks volumes, and in this case, the response was incredibly...