Osteria — Restaurant in Philadelphia

I don't even know where to begin... Probably, we need to start with the ratings. Once again WOW, I can't understand where such high ratings come from??? Are there really 900 misled and deceived people who have just graduated from Applebee's or Olive Garden, or has the management of this facility mobilized an entire army of employees, their friends and family members? We came here for restaurant week, which we think is a good time to check out some new (well, for us) restaurants with good reviews... Spoiler alert! What an unpleasant experience, a disappointment and an incredible waste of time and money it was.

First some highlights (for those who don't want to read the entire post): Poor ordering "rules" for the Restaurant Week, food mediocre and not high quality, portions are WAY too small by any standard, service average, management a bit rude, unprofessional and disrespectful.

Little more details: Four of us arrive at this restaurant hoping for a good Sunday dinner after reservation and checking the menu online. Needless to say we were very excited to have a good 4 course menu but unfortunately the menu only looked good on paper. We were informed by our waitress that the food is served as "family style" ONLY! and we can choose 2 appetizers, 2 pastas and 1 (ONE!?) main course. It was our first road bump, there are 4 of us, why do we have to choose the same entrée? Why not at least give us a choice of 2? While going back and forth with unanswered questions with our waitress, she decided to call the manager for a better explanation because she probably thinks we are "idiots" who simply can't understand what she's talking about. The manager wasn't much better either, he was making sure that we were feel as "idiots" who couldn't figure out that "...this is how we do it..." and basically should agreed or leave. After the manager turned down our offer to treat us as 2 couples, we decided to stay anyway and follow the "rules", because it was late and we didn't want to start looking for another place to eat on that rainy Sunday evening.

Food: For appetizers we ordered "TUNA CRUDO" - very small pieces of tuna in cheap olive oil and very cheap balsamic vinegar and "BURRATA" - absolutely TASTELESS dish and served way too cold. Pasta course: "CANDELE" - Not even taste it because portion was too small and let other people at my table have it and "PACCHERI" - definitely not spiced correctly, it was something like cinnamon there... a lot of it! Important to say that "PACCHERI" came absolutely cold, and i immediately mentioned that to our waitress. She took that bowl out and in a FEW minutes same manager bring the same but a little warmer bowl back (probably fresh from microwave) and angerly throw it on our table. He did not say a word... No apologies, no offer to remake it, no nothing... Not to mention you get a plate with 2 spoonful of pasta for 4 people in an Italian restaurant?! Unbelievable! Entrée: "DUROC PORK CHOP" - that actually was not bad, bad again two sliced very small pork chops with average some kind of souse. Nothing special. Desert: "Ferrero Rocher Pannacotta" (at least i spell it correctly) - pretty self explanatory, and no exactment about that either.

Shame, but I took a sandwich on the way home... I don't remember if I ever leave any restaurant that hungry... Bottom line, this restaurant is everything that you are not expecting for Nice CC Philadelphia area that filled with great restaurants, save yourself a little time and go somewhere else. Or you can continue to read those fake...

I fell in love with the restaurant the moment I walked in. You can see the kitchen when you walk in along with beautiful tables for people to sit at. My friend and I were taken into the patio area which was absolutely beautiful. I wanted to live there - it kind of felt like I was in Europe. The marble tables, the glass windows, the chairs and the green plants, it was just all so beautiful!

My friend and I wanted to try so many things on the menu so we decided on doing the convivio - Chefs family style tasting menu. It allowed us to choose 2 antipasti, 2 primi, 1 piccoli piatti & 1 secondi, as well as 1 dessert.

For our 2 antipasti, we chose the tuna crudo and the ribeye tartar. The tuna crudo was good but a little too bitter for me. It comes with radicchio and grapefruit vinaigrette with the tuna and kumquats on top. The kumquats helped balance out the bitterness of the vinaigrette which I liked. The ribeye tartar I thought was just okay. It tasted normal but there wasn't anything amazing about it.

For the 2 primi, we got the squid ink paccheri and the corzetti ai frutti di mare. I loved the texture of the squid ink pasta. It wasn't soft but it wasn't hard. It was the right amount of chewiness in my opinion. The sauce was also good filled with chunks of rock shrimp. The corzetti ai frutti di mare was interesting to me. It came out in circle pastas - almost like little dumpling peels so I really liked that. It was topped with littleneck clams and mussels along with cherry tomatoes. The thing that made this dish different from the other pasta was the sauce - it was a sweeter sauce that kind of tasted like apple sauce which is not something I'm used to on my pasta so it was a interesting surprise.

Next we got the scallops for our piccoli piatti. The scallops were amazingly done. It was so tender, so soft, and just perfectly cooked! It came with 2 big scallops with some very fresh snap peas! Yummy!!

Then we got the branzino for our secondi and boy was it amazing!! The branzino was cooked really well, the fish was super soft and not fishy at all like other restaurants. The sauce that came with the branzino (lemon, olive oil, and oregano) complimented the fish super well!! This dish was perfect.

Our dessert was the poached pear crostata (comes with dark chocolate sorbet) and it was really well done! It was not too sweet and it was both flaky, soft, sweet and nutty at the same time (crystallized walnut).

All in all, the tasting menu was a good experience for $58 per person. I didn't think everything was amazing so I docked 1 star. But the ambiance is really great and so is the staff.

If you don't want to do the tasting menu, I would just recommend the branzino as a meal. It really is well done and...

This is a beautiful restaurant. Upon walking in we noticed the outdoor seating and were excited to sit out there. It's covered but there are some openings. It can get a little chilly, and the bench/booth isn't comfortable, but all the same it's a beautiful and serene environment.

The Riva Spritz is an insanely delicious drink. The calamari was good but it was either overcooked or the oil it was fried in was old. The spaghetti w Mussels and the Rotolo with Crab were soooo good. However of all the food we ate the only thing that was hot was the Rotolo.

The server, Connor(sp) is why we're giving 2 stars. His greet was late, close to 10 minutes after our being sat. He did ask us if we'd dined there before, and we told him no. Usually when a server asks that question and you tell them no, it's followed with a brief yet detailed description of the restaurant and popular options.

We said no and his follow up question was, what can I get you to drink? No recommendations, never mentioned any specials, no menu tour guiding, just what can I get you? I thought that was odd but because we'd waited so long for him to come over we knew what drinks and appetizers we wanted.

We ordered the drinks and attempted to order an appetizer and he abruptly and kinda rudely said, you have to order everything at once. My dinner date wanted to address that then but I insisted we just relax and see what's to come.

He was in and out throughout the experience, checked on us a few times, got us a second round of drinks and was ok after the initial interactions.

My biggest issue came at the end. As we're looking over the dessert menu Connor is greeting another table 2 spots down from us. The tables are pretty close so we could hear everything he was saying to them. And I was shocked to hear him go through an entire spiel about the restaurant, the ordering procedures, the specials, including a bone in ribeye (I would've absolutely tried).

He was incredibly professional and detailed to these guests. And for the life of me I can't comprehend why they would receive such great service and information from this young man when our table received the bare minimum.

I could make up 100 different reasons why in my head but there's one that stands out clearly. All in all, the experience was decent until ruined by realizing that our server treated us as if we weren't welcomed there. As a long time restaurant industry vet, and when I say long term I mean 2+ decades, this experience was more offensive than almost any I've had.

I love Italian food and we chose this place based on reviews, wanting something authentic, and how beautiful it was. Will probably never return due to this experience which is extremely...