Travinia Italian Kitchen & Wine Bar Greenville — Restaurant in South Carolina

No real complaints about the interior, although the design reminded me brick-for-brick of a Macaroni Grill I'd been in once up north.

On to the food at the Beacon Drive, Greenville location:

Unfortunately, despite the lovely wait staff and manager, I have to express my disappointment with Travinia. The number of vegetarian options was quite low for an Italian restaurant. The reason more options could not be offered was due to the lack of skill in the kitchen. The kitchen staff are clearly recipe-trained cooks - not chefs. They only know how to make the specific dishes that Travinia sells, and have no real appreciation of or knowledge as to what makes recipes work. There is a subtlety to cooking: it isn't simply throwing ingredients into a pan and heating them.

Because they were unable to make a pink sauce (red sauce + cream) to which they could add a little vodka and some red pepper flakes, I could not have the Penne Vodka, because the sauce they make ahead of time is made with animal fat.

I was forced to settle on the Fettuccine Alfredo. It was the second worse attempt at this dish I've ever tasted, and I've had this dish from Rome to Seattle and many dozens of points in between. First of all, the kitchen staff thinks that one white sauce is the same as another. Ignorance. They clearly took their pre-made Carbonara sauce, poured it over fettuccine, and threw in some parmesan. Carbonara sauce is made with egg. Alfredo sauce is butter, cream, and parmesan - that's it.

The dish I was served looked to be an entire pound (or more!) of pasta. I would have preferred half as much and done right. I sent it back. I thought about ordering a pizza - my only other real option as a vegetarian - but somehow I knew they'd drown it in cheese, undercook it, and just generally get it wrong. I ate my side salad.

We decided we'd try a dessert. We ordered tiramisu. Before ordering, I asked our waitress if it was soaked in rum or espresso. She said espresso. The tiramisu we got was not soaked in anything. It literally had the consistency of dried-out yellow cake layers between what I'm only assuming to be mascarpone. The bottom looked as if the top 3/4 of tiramisu had been scooped out of a sheet pan, leaving on the pan the entire espresso-soaked bottom layer. I wish I'd taken a photo, but things were already awkward by this point. The "slice" we were given was not cut straight on ANY side, the "bottom" was uneven and raggedly cut - clearly missing the bottom. On top - GET THIS - were broken chocolate pieces/crumbles that looked like the bits you'd find at the bottom of a bag of something. They were dry, crumb-size, differently-sized - just broken looking. Those were dumped on top. Yeah, awkward.

A great many people who've been raised on chain restaurants don't know what these dishes are supposed to taste like. They don't know what al dente is. These restaurants give you an enormous plate of pasta so you feel you're getting your money's worth, but the quality is nil. A hundred zeroes still add up to nothing.

Perhaps it was my fault to expect anything of a restaurant like this. At least now I know. Instead of being a go-to, Travinia is now forever off the list.

On the positive side: The Aperol Spritz and Blackberry Mule we ordered were downright decent. Nothing to get excited about, but they were good - the highlight of a very...

Walked in with my boyfriend and was greeted by a hostess…no smile more of a glare and no greet or hello just “how many in your party” we said 2 …“right this way” …we were sat in a booth in dining room. After 10 min had gone by we kept looking around in hopes of being noticed. Multiple servers walked by our table but never looked our way. They weren’t busy at all so that’s what was confusing .As we were about to leave our server showed up. Asked us what we wanted to drink and if we were ready to order. We said our drink order and then said we would like to order 2 appetizers. 1 from reg menu and 1 from happy hour menu . Was then told we aren’t allowed to order happy hour apps in dining room only bar area. I said I was confused because the website menu says different . That’s the only reason we even noticed it and wanted to order it . Was then told “well you must have read it wrong “ I was like ummm no I didn’t but is it really that big of an issue . She then said “ if you want that appetizer from HHour menu so bad then why don’t you move to the bar . I said yeah I think that’s prob a good idea …she then snatched the menus off the table and ran them 20 ft to the open booth in bar area . Wow all that over 1 happy hour appetizer. We both work in a restaurant and couldn’t imagine this type of service . At this point we prob should have left but I was told by a couple regs at our bar that the food is good so we decided to forget about the terrible start. New server was okay. She was somewhat nice but still had an attitude most of the time . Our apps were decent . Tuna was very good but was missing a sauce . Happy hour brushetta wasn’t good . A bunch of diff types of slop on room temp crackers. Fig brushetta tasted store bought. Salad was not good either . We got lobster ravioli and Filet Marsala . Was told half way thru salad that they were out of Lob Rav. Not surprised . Filet Marsala had barely enough sauce to cover top of steak . And a whopping total of 3 little mushrooms . That’s it ?? Filet was cooked great but must have been a shortage on Marsala sauce and Marsala toppings . And that roasted veg side was a joke. I’m 99.9% sure that was birdseye frozen veg from store with 2 old roasted potatoes thrown in it . Had to ask for refills after they were on ice . A lot of standing around by staff and talking and staring with no manager on site. I never go to any restaurant and don’t order dessert . This was the first time in forever I can remember I passed on dessert. Also numerous strange taxes I’ve never seen before . Pay less with cash pay more with debit card??….again very odd bizarre experience . Still left a generous tip even though it didn’t feel right from awful time cuz we are both in service industry but I can’t remember an overall visit where the food and service...

It was a new place we seen. I felt like the outside looked very nice you can tell newly painted. Opening the doors going in nice clean kinda plain. Everyone was very nice in greeting us. I asked for a booth as for my preference. Very nice hostess sat us and welcomed us there. The waitress came and greeted us and brought water. The water glasses on our table were visibly dirty. We declined the water and asked for tea. She came back and asked was we ready to order. My child asked did the pasta come with garlic bread. She stated no that she could bring some free bread to the table so I wouldn't have to pay for it. She could bring more if we asked for it. This hit me the wrong way. I had left work dressed nice and the children were dressed casual. As we were in the area for an appointment. When looking around I could tell it was buisness attire mostly. No problem we all the same at the end of the day. We all ordered I think it was travinia pasta which was chicken alfredo with roasted tomatoes and broccoli. The kids got just the chicken and pasta and I got regular dish with the tomatoes and broccoli. We got the bread first it was good just very hard. The kids had a hard time eating it with braces. The bowls arrived the pasta looked great! I was reading about the restaurant as I was waiting. To get the back story of the restaurant. First bite it was ok you could tell it was lacking any seasoning. If you have a master chef cooking he needs a master lesson in seasoning. One of my children asked for parmesan cheese and I asked for salt and pepper. Adding these it did give it a better taste. As you know we go to a lot of different places. One bite would be perfectly cooked. The next bite would be hard noodles ,broccoli and chicken. I know it's a new opening and I am not usally this critical. The plates are very expensive and it should be perfectly cooked for 18 dollars a bowl. I picked up the dessert menu special drinks menu while eating. They are trash behind of it. So that to me says the waitress half wiped the table and that horrible. Had to look for the waitress to get a refill. She was with the other ones talking. The other couples that were around us was complaining. I did not say anything we were very nice to our waitress. Even though we felt that we were out of place and couldn't pay for bread. I wish I had enough money on my cash app card and I would have payed with that. That would have really gave her reason to think I couldn't afford it. I wish you the best of luck but you have a lot of training left to get everyone on...