Bavaro's Pizza Napoletana & Pastaria — Restaurant in Sarasota

Edit: 11.06.19.. our third try. The owner, Dan, contacted me after my original review and went over my concerns and sent me a gift card to try again. We went tonight; it has cooled off so we took my dog to enjoy the patio. It was not very busy. Liana appeared to be the host, bartender and only server, and she was training another server. She was so amazing. 2 things to note from my last review.. they now provide a water carafe so you can maintain your own water (which is great since the water glasses are small) and they now offer a cabernet sauvignon (which we like since they have very specific wines from Italy that we arent familiar with and there isnt a description on the menu and previously the waitstaff couldn't explain them). So just these 2 things alone were already a step in the right direction. Liana really saved it for us, she went above and beyond. This girl deserves a raise. Our order was correct, she was friendly, she was super nice to my dog. We never had to ask for anything twice. And we absolutely love the pizza, which is why I was sad the service hadn't been great previously. We will definitely be back!

Original: I want to love this place! We went for the 1st time shortly after opening and the service was awful due to how busy and disorganized they were but overall most of us enjoyed the food, so we gave it a pass and came again awhile later. This time they were very slow, so it had to be better, right? Nope.. when we arrived there was no one upstairs and we were sat upstairs as the only table. The service was insanely slow, our waters were never refilled, the steak was overcooked, the toppings on the pizza were wrong. Another couple was sat upstairs and they were in and out before we were checked on. If you're going to have wine on the menu without a description, it'd be nice if the waitstaff could provide insight as to each one to assist the customer with which one they may prefer, but both visits the waitstaff didn't know anything about the wines. As this visit was for my birthday, my friend sent a message directly to the restaurant to provide feedback. She was never responded to (it's been over a month). I absolutely love this type of pizza and want this place to succeed but so far that doesn't seem to...

First time here and we’ve been wanting to try this place. Upon arrival we were warmly greeted and seated at a table on the porch. There was live music by a solo guitarist on the porch that added a nice background. It was a bit loud, but we were able to carry on a conversation.

Table and stemware here are all glass and we had cloth napkins. The table itself was a little bit small, and if there was four of us rather than three, it would’ve been a little crowded.

The restaurant is Situated in a historic remodeled two story house in downtown Sarasota. It’s separated into three areas. Upstairs dining, downstairs inside dining and indoor/ outdoor bar and a Spacious covered outdoor space with great ambiance. The open kitchen on the ground floor adds a nice touch and provides a lot of activity as meals are prepared and shuttled to tables.

Our server, Doug did a great job throughout the meal. He was attentive, but not overbearing. We were never rushed during our meal.

We started with two glasses of Pinot Grigio and a glass of Montepulciano along with the ANGELA’S RICOTTA MEATBALLS appetizer which had nice size warm meatballs, and an excellent taste. Wine portions were good and the glasses as they were served in were very nice.

The menu here is fairly limited, but they do have a selection of 5-6 each of appetizers, pastas, pizzas and mains. For dinners we ordered the ravioli Al formaggio, osso bucco (my favorite) and an off menu item of spaghetti & clams.

The food was a little delayed in coming out, and unfortunately, it was barely warm. Across the board we all liked the ravioli. The spaghetti and clams which, for some reason also included shrimp was also very good. The Osso Boco which came with polenta however, was barely edible. Osso Bucco should come out nice and tender. This one was tough sinewy with no shank bone. I didn’t mention that to the waiter and he did take it off the bill.

Overall, we liked this restaurant ambiance and we had good service. The food was average the exception of the Osso Buco which was bad. We probably should’ve stuck a pizza which is more of their specialty rather than traditional Italian dishes.

We will...

Where do I begin...we made a reservation to celebrate Valentine’s Day together which we were in town on vacation for and upon arriving, the owner was unable to guarantee us a table upstairs. He offered us to sit in the area which seemed to be reserved for walk-ins and was not as private (right next to the open kitchen), and they were unable to accommodate us outside other than at the bar...why would we make a reservation to sit at the bar??? After being seated in the general walk-in table area, we were shortly moved upstairs since multiple people had just left. The owner came upstairs and told us two servers called out unexpectedly and the service upstairs would not be as fast, so to be patient with them.

Our server seemed extremely inexperienced - she was frazzled, disoriented, and unprofessional. At one point in the meal, she called down the steps to another server “is it over yet”. We ordered the garlic bread, meatballs, the prosciutto pizza and penne vodka. Not only was the kitchen EXTREMELY slow (our meal took 2 hours) but the rest of the staff didn’t seem to have an idea of what was going on. The owner’s son and the female food runner seemed to be more involved in each other than waiting on tables or assisting the servers. Food was consistently run upstairs with no idea of what table or guest it went to. A couple at the table behind us that sat down 30 mins after us received their food before ours. We had to ask them to send bread and butter because we were waiting for so long for the appetizers. Once we finally got the food, it was good but disappointing it took so long. For dessert, we ordered tiramisu and a cannoli. After 25 minutes they tell us that they are out of the tiramisu and the cannoli would be taken care of. For whatever reason it took 25 minutes to fill a cannoli and communicate that. It’s a shame we didn’t have a better experience with the service because the food was fair. How is this place operational?? Would not return...