etta Scottsdale Quarter — Restaurant in Scottsdale

Etta was sold and purchased by new owners 2 months ago with slight renovations like a room for large private parties. The atmosphere is trendy and the lighting is elegant. In fact, you’ll feel most comfortable dressed nicely and not in jeans. The music is upbeat as are the servers and manager who all had incredible personalities and made absolutely sure that we were happy with every aspect of our dinner throughout.

One of the menu items that stood out as much better than before was the Caesar Salad which has a generous amount of crumbly crouton-crispy almost breadcrumb-like Parmesan Reggiano and pancetta mixture over the top which I definitely recommend! It’s only $16. and large enough to feed four (with another appetizer or bread). The server recommended the meatball appetizer, and since his recommendations were honest and spot-on with everything else, we should have gotten that instead of the focaccia bread (and will next time).

For entrees: I had the Truffle Pecorino Pasta Pillows in a cream sauce. I loved it, but it is for people who love the umami of truffles and rich dishes. It could be described as a tender gnocchi. My favorite was shockingly what my husband ordered. I was so surprised, because I would never order a smokey or spicy pasta, but the “Spicy Rigatoni,” with tender homemade pasta had a subtle and very elevated flavor due to it being in their fire oven, and the spice was also so subtle that it made me say, “This is so balanced; they really know what they’re doing!” Instead of a spicy red sauce, it had a creamier vodka sauce. An outstanding entree is the pork. My son was going to get steak, but since they were large and the server recommended the pork entree over the Chicken Parmesan, my son ordered that and was so blown away that he literally said, “This just spoiled me from enjoying pork anywhere else again!” It was tender and sliced with a slightly sweet but balanced sauce and was served with vegetables. So you won’t need to order a vegetable side with this entree. Although, one recommendation that sounded good to me was the whipped potatoes.

For an extremely cool cocktail experience, we saw a couple of different tables order the cocktail tree, where cocktails hang from the branches and the server wafts clouds (of dry ice in a wine-type of decanter.) Check out my video; it’s spectacular.

The only disappointment was the focaccia bread. With the former owners, it was a very unique and flaky bread (that didn’t actually taste like focaccia bread) and it had four peaks the tore apart like puff pastry. The whipped butter had sweet honey, and the whole thing was like having a dessert type of bread. It was so special and I’ve never had it anywhere else. In fact, when we had the (amazing) focaccia board at Giada de Laurentiis’ restaurant, I told my friend, “You have to have Etta’s!” Well, now it is actually focaccia, inverted (I suppose) covered with caramelized onions, difficult to share. and the whipped butter on the side is quite normal. So, if you like focaccia, you may enjoy it, but if you loved the previous one, you will probably be disappointed.

This is most definitely a restaurant that you want to go to if it’s your birthday, because it’s the only time you can get the amazing and delicious dessert with the “birthday cake mouse” that they bring to you with a candle, and the outside looks like red velvet. It was one of the best desserts I’ve ever had. The other two desserts that we had were the rich chocolate layer cake surrounded by a caramel drizzle and the carrot cake. As you can see in my photos. both are large slices and shareable. They were so moist and all were beautifully garnished.

Etta is a great place to take a date or dine with friends. They have a nice-size bar area and DJ. on the weekends in the restaurant area. They have an inside dining area that’s set apart and more quiet and outdoor dining as well. We went on a Wednesday night, and it still had the feel of a...

My wife and I were seated at a table in what appeared to be the only section of the restaurant where the tables were crammed about a foot away from each other. Everyone seated at these tables looked very uncomfortable with the proximity, and it felt like we were eating dinner with strangers. There wasn't even enough room for the servers and staff to get between the tables and they had to awkwardly reach over us to add or move anything to the table. Mix this with the annoying electronic music that was far too loud to hear the person across from you, it just left the whole experience lacking anything premium feeling.

We went on a Saturday night, and they were out of ribeye, shrimp, and we over heard the server tell the table they were out of three other items as well. We thought that was a little odd for such an upscale place to be so unprepared for dinner service on a weekend. I also found it a little annoying that when I asked for the ribeye the server suggested the tomahawk that was over 2.5x the price as "the same thing". I'm not stupid, I know the tomahawk is a ribeye, but suggesting something so absurdly expensive as a comparable substitute just sat wrong with me.

We ordered an appetizer, two steaks, a bowl of pasta and a side. Nothing we ate was terrible, but none of it was memorable. We got the Bolognese pasta and the meat in the sauce overcooked and dry, and the taste of the sauce and quality of the pasta overall was nothing special. My wife got the parmesan crusted filet, which was good, but not great either. I ordered the NY Strip. The quality of the cut of meat certainly was good, but the cooking of it was lackluster. No crust at all, no char. Seriously, Longhorn is beter at cooking steak. All of this would have been fine if the price of it was no more than half of the $95 they thought this was worth.

The NY strip was served on a thick wood board/block with no juice groove on it, purely for no reason other than aesthetics. This caused a huge mess on our table. Due to the close proximity of the tables, when the busser came to clear the table and reached over me to grab it, a drop of steak juice dripped onto my pants. I didn't notice this until we left, or I certainly would have said something.

The service we got was ok. Our drinks sat empty for half our meal before we were asked if we wanted more.

Overall, nothing was bad, but nothing was great. And that's our biggest issue with it. We are very easy going people, and typically are not overly picky. But when we spend $300 on dinner at a upscale restaurant, hell yea we are going to be picky. Nothing we ate warranted the price tag they put on their food, and the service and experience we had fell very short of the experiences we have had at other restaurants with a similar price point. Since they are clearly trying to be one of those restaurants, we left very disappointed.

I did email them the next day, not really expecting much, and they did apologize for the experience but didn't make any attempt to win my business back. The email said they would look into it, but was noncommittal about whether or not they would even get back to me. Again, I wouldn't even care if this wasn't such an upscale place, but because it is, I can't help but hold them to a...

We were a party of 5, my son chose your establishment because he likes it very much. The ambience was fine, the food was good but our waiter (NICK) needs to take customer service lessons!

He started off fine but just wasn’t engaging enough for a waiter! Our drinks came at a reasonable amount of time but he didn’t come back to take our food orders for what seemed like 15 mins!

We all placed our orders, I ordered the Crispy chicken sandwich. It was about another 20 mins before he came back to inform me that the “kitchen” had run out of Chicken. Although he apologized, why couldn’t he come out sooner to inform me?

He then tried to convince me to order the French Dip! WHAT??? They are not even similar in the least! I ordered the “Smash Burger”.

After our orders were delivered, it was quite a while before he came to check on us, our drinks were dry. After our courses were consumed, my wife mentioned to him that it was our sons birthday and she asked for a Dessert menu. He comes back with a tiny white cake (very delicious) and five rather large dishes with forks. What happened to the Dessert menu??? We never shared the cake, too small!

I flagged him down and, again asked for a Dessert menu to which he responded with the following. “Sorry but the pastry chef has gone home for the night and that’s all we have. That’s the only thing I know how to make”. What the heck did that mean???

He finally brought our bill which totaled a little over $128.00. I feel he should have taken the burger off of the bill but he didn’t. I paid with my Wells Fargo debit card, then he mentioned that he had the same exact card as me, was that supposed to make me feel better or something?

Upon leaving the establishment, he was too engaged with a large party of young women, who sat right at the first table next to the front entrance to even wave or notice us exiting. He didn’t even gaze our way as he held a sparkler in his right hand and a tray of appetizers in his left hand smiling and meeting the gazes of all the young women!

Overall, Etta is a very nice contemporary establishment with an extensive list of Spirits which over shadows the rather limited list of main courses.

My burger was good, a little salty, I had to request the mustard though (who eats burgers without mustard)? Another minus is the mayo, mustard and ketchup were delivered in small metal dipping cups.Enough is enough, COVID IS OVER!

I only tipped him $15.00 which, in my opinion, is $15 too much. I think our son has changed his opinion on your establishment. “Happy...