Taverna Costale — Restaurant in Saint Petersburg

Cute restaurant. The menu intrigued me, and we thought we would try this for a few friends to entertain from out of town.

We were seated right away, and I don’t recommend sitting outside at this time with all the construction going on. We were sitting on a table on the sidewalk and a police car parked right next to our table on the sidewalk, which was not very settling.

The server was very polite, and knew a lot about the wine pairings and the good items to choose on the menu.

We received the octopus appetizer, the focaccia, and a small salad. The octopus was chard, but that kind of charred that was so burnt that all you taste it was the burnt. My friends ordered cocktails, which were served after appetizers, because the bar was busy, however, my friends liked the wine pairing and also a I smoked whiskey, drink that was more fancier than it was tasty.

I was also disappointed with my main course, the other members of the table were not, but I received a salmon, which was recommended that I order, medium rare, but it was actually slightly cold in the middle when it was served to me. I expect fish to be cooked very lightly in the middle, but this was just not cooked completely. I had a hard time finishing.

My friends didn’t want to admit that their food was a little less than exceptional, but they can leave their own review. One, particularly embarrassing incident was I went inside the restaurant and asked to use the bathroom. I was told it was a door in the lobby next to the elevator. Here’s a pro tip, the door is actually a hole in the glass that doesn’t appear to have any reference to a bathroom if you go through this hole in the wall. After walking around the lobby of the office building for several minutes finally a security guard pointed to the bathroom which I still cannot see until I came upon it. Like an invisible door, so just do yourself a favor and ask for some really good directions to the bathroom!

Perhaps this place just need some fine-tuning with the chef, overall, the service was good, but it was painful to pay $50 for food that I didn’t particularly think was cooked very well. Because I was with friends and family, and they thought it was fine. I didn’t want to make a fuss I didn’t complain. So that’s kind of on me.

If you are a person that enjoys letting the staff know that we were not pleased with your food and sending it back, you’ll probably do fine here. But trust me, don’t give the houses any feedback about her bathroom directions. On the way back to my table. I kind of joked that I had a hard time finding the bathroom and the host was not so nice about that, making me feel foolish when I was just trying to add humor...

We were there Feb 11, 2022. Located in a perfect spot on Central Ave in St. Pete. There is a very nice greeter who confirms you have a reservation and then escorts you to the host stand. The host staff was not super welcoming, They asked about our reservation again as if the greeter does not exits. Also, not really friendly. We both brushed it off as possibly they were focused, new and busy.

At the table, Adam was great! Service was attentive, knowledgeable and engaging. Adam would admit the bar service for both of our rounds of drinks was painfully slow. Our second drink did not come out until we were nearly done with the main course. (And we did order the drinks before the mains were delivered)

A couple of quirky things happened: food we did not order was delivered to our table 3 separate times...not a negative thing, but started to become humorous. Our mains were delivered before any replacement silverware...that was a little awkward. A manager, they have 2 on the floor and both were very attentive, cleaned the table after our apps and gave us silverware. So, no worries.

The food was fantastic! We had the octopus, mussels, swordfish and pork shank. All of these dishes we would order again. We tried TC because of Fabio Viviani's involvement and were not disappointed at all by the menu and flavors.

My pet peeve got in the way a bit and reduced the stars rating by 1 star. TC adds what they list as a "non-cash adjustment" to the bill. It is 3% of the bill and when I asked about it, the answer finally, and nervously came out that it covers the credit card fee. One could argue that this is something businesses need to cover. We can agree to disagree. TC charges premium prices, as I expected. I do not buy into this practice for the most part. Maybe it's ok for a solo-preneur trying to compete with low prices where cash might normally be used (like at an art fair), but definitely not for a restaurant group on the premium pricing end. It was only around $5.30 on a $180 tab so it isn't about the money, I am personally against this as a practice. Again, you might find it too nit picky of me and now that you know, it might be ok for you.

Without the pet peeve situation, we would absolutely go back to TC. Although there are a couple of minor growing pains for a newish place, we liked it a lot and recommend it, as long as you can get...

I was in town for a bachelorette party and we made a reservation here. They had a nice big table for us in a private room, this was probably the only good thing about this evening. There were two servers for our table of 14 girls. There are so many things that did not go right. My food was cold when it came out, and for $37 it should not have been cold. The main server took my friend's bread away when they weren't done. The main server had an attitude about most questions asked. She was very hot and cold. Our bills took forever to come out. And we saw the main server sitting down and not attending to us. She threw the bill at my sister and with a snide remark said, 'oh I think this is your bill.' One of the girls went to the bathroom and almost slipped on the floor because there was oil on the floor. She told the main server there was something on the ground and the main server literally said, oh the other girl spilled some oil on the floor, she must've not cleaned it up. Are you kidding me? What a major liability. Like I'm Mind blown that the server would said that. The manager never came by to see how our table was. When we left I went to the front and saw the business card and was going to contact later about how bad our experience was. The manager was at the host stand and asked how our experience was. I told him it was just ok. He asked me why just ok and I told him I didn't want to get into it then. The rest of the girls were coming out and I didn't want to make a scene. My sister came k we and told him you should have come over to a large table to check on us, but you didn't. He agreed. Throughout the rest of the night and next day I talked to all the girls and EVERYONE said how horrible everything was at that restaurant. I don't really understand why it was so bad. The main server, Patty, but I don't know if she was drunk or on meds because she was just a horrible server and very rude. This was the first night of the bachelorette party and was not a great start to the weekend. Overall this was probably the worst experience I've ever had. I would not recommend going here at all. For the $124 that I spent it was definitely not worth it at all. The manager should have offered to do something in that moment when he asked me other than just asking me to call the next day. I'm so disappointed in...