Primo’s Lake Tahoe — Restaurant in South Lake Tahoe

My daughter and I both ordered the "Braciole" said to be "cured meat" and hand made pasta. 17yr old daughter took one bite and would not continue, they kindly accepted a return and I ordered her a more familiar dish chicken parm. I then tried my Braciole and thought it was not good, unpleasant taste and smell, but maybe it was something new that I wasn't used to. After a few minutes I realized it smelled distinctly like ammonia. I mentioned this to the waitress, she said 'no, it's complex, it smells like all the things I like'. I thought ok, its me, and continued on for a few more bites, then decided nope, no more for me regardless, later that night I spent the evening with the restroom. I wish I had listened to my senses, I know good food, we were at Ramsey's Hells Kitchen two nights ago, and have eaten out at restaurants of good repute around the country for decades. They advertise cooking 'souse vide' or cooked in a sealed bag. I'm thinking that the cured meat was not handled correctly, and obvious to me now, had gone bad resulting in a distinct ammonia odor (anaerobic in a sealed bag could cause this), not to mention the meat was a chewy as you could imagine maybe a microwaved? Overall, I'm biased by our dishes but I thought that there were subtle odd tastes in the chicken parm and the chicken piccata as well. The atmosphere is great, upscale, the people who work there are polite, but I'm not liking the thoughts of what is going on with those bags/souse vide, perhaps pre-prepared and sitting for some time before being cooked, who knows, but there seems some opportunity for a lack of freshness. I don't do a lot of reviews, but I do rely on other people's work, today I decided to post and...

Father's Day reservation... it started out a bit odd. There was no host at the front door for about five minutes when we walked in. Bartender waved, and eventually, one of the waiters came over and checked us in for our reservation. He asked if we wanted patio or indoors. Since it was a nice evening, we requested the patio. A couple more minutes go by before the hostess shows up. Then she preceded to ask if we had a third person... I told her it was just my wife and I, and she said we couldn't have a patio table because they were busy (Ahh, no! place was half full at best). Well, she seated us inside, and I could see that the patio was almost empty. What???

So we waited for our waiter, plenty of staff walking around during this time, but apparently, they weren't assigned to our corner. The couple beside us had ordered some wine with their dinner, which wasn't provided, and after the third time they requested their wine, they finally got it. At this point, it's about 15 minutes after we sat down, and a young lady came by with some water. Finally, getting some attention. We sat for another 10 minutes and still no waiter. Like I previously said, lots of staff walking around, but nobody was getting our order. So we got up and left. Went across the street to South Tahoe Pizza Company. Way better choice.

Reviews all good, but I think it was for their original location. I wouldn't waste my time on the Emarld...

Sorry to say but it’s a touristy diner IMO.. I would not return. My daughter picked this out of many other fine dining options while we were visiting Lake Tahoe. Unfortunately, my daughter’s “gluten” dinner was partially “clumped” together that she had to use a knife to cut it apart… we brought it to their attention and they got us a separate plate of “non clumped” pasta instead.

My wife and I were enjoying our medium rare 18 oz ribeye. But about half way through the steak, we found out that the remaining steak was too rare that we couldn’t cut the steak even using their specialized steak knife. I inform my waiter of this, and he asked if I want it to be cooked a bit more? I paused and hesitantly said yes…I was hoping they could bring me a separate 8 oz ribeye instead of cooking the leftover some more..

Later on, my wait staff returned with my steak in a to-go-box (to our surprise).

I asked to speak to the manager about the errors made on my steak and my daughter’s pasta.

My waiter said that I should have complained before hand to him so he could do something ahead of time… He never bothered to call the manager.

We just paid and left disappointed..

I was thinking that maybe he knew we will never return so it didn’t really matter if his kitchen did a suboptimal job…

There are many better fine dining options in South Lake Tahoe. I say skip this place and...