North Beach Restaurant — Restaurant in San Francisco

We went there on the reviews online where Zagat gave it high Mark's and WOW, were we disappointed. We live in FL, on the coast and eat fresh seafood every other day. My fiance ordered linguini with clams sauce, like she does about once a week, and the odor from the clams was overpowering. When the waiter, who had a smug annoying attitude from the moment we sat, was informed he got angry and said "clams come from the ocean and smell that way".......seriously? Really? To make matters worse he takes the plate away, doesnt ask if my wife to be would like anything else. And to even further this epic failure, I had veal parmesan that was totally flavorless...how's that even possible?! We wanted total comfort food and were made to be totally uncomfortable.

In the last 3 weeks I have been to CA twice, Minnesota, Austin, Miami and St Petersburg, FL with non stop client entertaining at 4 and 5 star restaurants for every meal and this moron is telling us that clams come from the ocean? Then the topper, he charges us for the dish my now starving love didn't take 2 bites of. Then, when I say something about it, he walks off in a huff and loudly proclaims across the restaurant that we think seafood smells like it comes from the sea and tells the manager sarcastically that we know how to pick seafood better than him. At which point I almost got out of my chair and and fed him the clams through his snooty nose.

Needless to say, make your own choices but there are SO MANY wonderful restaurants in the San Francisco area that avoiding this one would be doing...

Disappointed. I remember coming here years ago for a work dinner, in the cellar banquet room. Great memories, but tonight for my son's 19th birthday it wasn't nearly as I had remembered. Limited vegetarian options and the Bucatini sauce had meat in it. They tried to up-sell me on a bottle of wine for 2 drinkers. They also tried to fast talk me into pasta appetizers for the whole table. What was that about?! We also ended up with 2 plates of over-steamed broccoli. No dinner with 4 kids needs 2 plates of broccoli. Thanks for watching out for us. Don't get me wrong, most of the dishes we had were good, albeit a bit pricey, but I felt like I was at a used car lot, buyer beware. I'm no SF food rookie, I've lived and eaten here for 20 years, treat me and my family with respect. We're trying to enjoy a special family occasion during these times, not be on guard. Oh and thanks for the 2 x $8 bottles of still water?! I asked at the end if we could take a peek at the cellar banquet room, was told it's under construction, but that I could make a separate reservation to see it??? Will not...

I heard a lot of good things about this restaurant, so I planned a nice date night here. Unfortunately, I was very disappointed.

I had a 7:15 reservation, and I arrived 10 minutes early. The host said they were running a few minutes behind. No big deal, so we had a seat at the bar. We weren't seated until 7:45.

A waiter bumped into me and spilled my drink. They didn't offer another one.

Once we were seated, we continued to wait for a long time. We ended up spending over 3 hours total at this restaurant (we didn't even order dessert). Even at 10:30pm when we just wanted to leave, it took ages for someone to take the check.

These things can be forgiven, but worst of all was that we ordered wine but it they never brought it. How does an Italian restaurant forget the wine? I didn't realize it was missing until I started eating. I could have tried to flag someone down, but I lost all confidence in the service at that point.

The food however was outstanding. It was the only redeeming quality of the evening.

Next time I plan a dinner date, I'll go to...