Zarra's Restaurant — Restaurant in Pittsburgh

I went here for my birthday with the SO. We sat in the patio area, which is really nice. There's cute lighting out there and a big iron stove that wasn't lit while were there, but looks awesome sitting in the corner. The inside of the restaurant is also something to see. Unfortunately, it's not a good enough reason to come check this place out and I can't offer you another.

For starters, we asked our server about one of the wines and her answer was simply that she didn't know. There was no offer to ask someone else nor any effort to find the answer, just she didn't know. Not a big deal, we decided to just risk it on the wine, but not the best way to start dinner.

We ordered the Manicotti di Antoinette and the Melenzane Romano. They both came with dinner salads and bread. The lettuce in the salad was all romaine and it was crunchy and fresh. Everything else in the salad came from a can, maybe a jar, I don't know, but the freshness ended with the lettuce. The salad was topped with chickpeas, beets, olives, and a couple slivers of roasted pepper. The dressing was homemade, but nothing special, a very basic vinaigrette. The bread was so utterly disappointing I'm not sure where to start. The bread was served in a basket wrapped with a towel, but it wasn't warm. It was dry and bland. It wasn't served with butter, which is good because even room temperature butter would have ripped right through this stuff.

Service was already completely lacking at this point. We waited 15 or 20 minutes for our salads, which wasn't so bad, we had wine after all. We didn't see our server much during that time, but we did see her again shortly after we got our salads because she had our entrees. Fine dining at its worst! Timing is important, but nobody at Zarra's seems to care.

The entrees were underwhelming as well. I ordered the Melenzane Romano, which is described as "Fresh eggplant lightly battered and browned in olive oil, layered with marinara sauce and grated romano cheese; then baked to perfection. Includes sautéed mushrooms and sautéed spinach. $18". The eggplant was really good and their marinara is great. The mushrooms and spinach on the plate were so, so, sooooooo disappointing. The mushrooms were boring and the spinach was just a blob of tasteless right-from-the-freezer ickiness. The SO ordered the Manicotti di Antoinette "Another house favorite. Each homemade crepe is individually prepared and filled with Judy's special ricotta filling, then topped with tomato sauce, a sprinkle of grated romano and baked in the oven. Served with your choice of meatball, sausage, or eggplant romano. $18". Again, great marinara & the eggplant he ordered with it was good stuff. Not bad, but not worth the price, not even close.

Since we still had some wine, and it was my birthday, we decided to stay for dessert. Turns out, we shouldn't have bothered. We ordered the Tirami-Suzy. It's good that they don't actually call it tiramisu since it's made with cream cheese and not mascarpone. And, ordering dessert added about 45 minutes to the whole experience. Their version of tiramisu is heavier than it should be and not good. It's just wrong. That kinda sums up everything about this place, it's just wrong. The service was bad (we ended up getting up and going inside to pay our bill), not much that we were served seemed fresh, and their prices are ridiculous for what they serve and how they serve it. They get two stars because the place is actually pretty cute. Lucky for you, it's not the only cute place...

If I could give less than 1 star I would. We were a group of five, when we arrived at the restaurant there was one other table. The entire waitstaff seemed to be children, which probably wouldn't have even bothered me if we hadn't had so many issues.

Upon arriving, we were given water. Nobody came to our table again for another 20-30 minutes. On ordering, we were asked if we wanted salads and if we wanted anchovies in them. Every person in our group said no to the anchovies, when they brought the salads out we were missing one and they asked again if we wanted anchovies. Again we said no. The last salad came out with anchovies. When our food finally did arrive, we were missing one of the meals. They asked if we'd ordered it. When we said yes they asked if we could order something else because it would take too long to cook the original food that was ordered.

Overall the food wasn't great, definitely not worth the price. Nobody in our group loved their meal, I think only two people even really ate/finished their food.

We asked for the check and had to wait another 10-15 minutes for it to arrive. At this point there were maybe 6-8 other tables there and we'd been there for at least two hours. When the check did arrive, we noticed that they'd automatically added a 20% gratuity for our group of five. Before paying we asked about the gratuity, and they asked if we liked the food and service. We told them it was fine, but not great at which point a guy at the bar became belligerent, and involved in our conversation. He told us he was the owner and yelled at us telling us we were wrong. At that point we just left.

For the price of this place, you can get much better Italian food with much better customer service in the area. Go someplace else.

Edit: I'm not sure how to reply to a response, so I'm just going to add it here. I'm not sure why you're responding to this 4 months after the fact, but I'm wondering if you are thinking I am someone else.

Unless you are a child, you were most likely not our server that night. "Never once did anyone at your table have to want for food nor drinks, as your glasses were constantly being filled" This is just straight up untrue. Many times we were sitting with empty glasses looking around for a server or someone to refill. You can also see from the above review that we were waiting quite a bit for food. Nobody in our group took any boxes of food home, so not sure what you're getting at there. I'm sorry we complained to your 72 year old mother, but maybe don't have her working the cash register if you don't want us to do that. She specifically asked us why we were upset which is the only reason we went into a longer explanation of our issues. At that point we just wanted to leave and had no interest in "tearing in to her" Anyway, while I'm not a huge fan of the Olive Garden, I appreciate your advice, the food and service at Olive Garden would have been so much...

We spent our Valentine's Day here and I think they honestly owe every couple who decided to spend their meaningful night here an apology. We sat at the table for more than two hours for our entree. One hour in, another table near us was passing two salads to another table - they probably have already had their salads and tried to figure out if anyone hasn't had it. Then we asked the servers for our salads and they handed us the salads from that table to us. 30 minutes later, we finally got some bread with no dips. We had been dipping the bread with the salad dressing that's left in our bowls. Then I asked for extra vinegar and oil. They never arrived. Two hours in, the server asked us what we were waiting for. Then the server asked us if we already had any food and brought us salads. We said we already had it but were still waiting for our entrees. She then asked us what's our order. Still, she brought us a plate of mushrooms that we didn't order and she told us later that she mixed us up with another table. 15 mins later, our food finally came with the protein choices mixed up, but we just took them as is. The dishes were already at room temperature and turned cold pretty quick. The taste was bland. All this time we have looked around the dining area, everyone had the same experience - waiting for two hours or even longer with only waters on their tables, and getting asked by servers about what their orders are after a long wait. I saw at least two couples left in the middle of waiting for food. Some of them chitchatted across tables about how awful this was. And all this time the restaurant continued to seat new customers. My partner and I both said that we had never been to a restaurant this bad. It's hard to make italian food so bad and is still charging this much. I cant understand how this place has gotten all these 5-star reviews. It honestly makes me wonder if this is the standard of Pittsburgh's food since it's our first proper meal here. I mean no offense, I just can't figure out how this place can survive - it would probably close down within a few months in my town. I never bother to leave any review - good or bad - but I genuinely feel urged to do this after dining in here. I left a very small tip because of how unpleasant it was. I feel bad for the servers, although they made mistakes themselves too, they seem to suffer under a...