Aura Coastal Mediterranean — Restaurant in Town of Hempstead

I hate leaving negative reviews but I do hope the managers /owners read this and adjust their flow of service in order to set their staff up for success because this past Sundays brunch was not it.

I wish I could give 5 stars but unfortunately the service ruined my first time experience here and I’m not sure if I would come back. It was obvious that the restaurant was understaffed .

We had a 1pm birthday brunch reservation on Sunday. We sat down at 1:15 and waited about 30-45 minutes for our first round of drinks, espresso martini tower, 3 bottomless brunch drinks and 2 Aperol spritz.

During this time of us ordering drinks & waiting for them to be made. 2 lager parties about 10+ people were sitting behind us, a large party of 25+people came & sat behind us & we watched 3 smaller tables get turned over 2 times. (Meaning 3 tables ate, paid & left and another reservation sat down)

Around 1:45 our server came over to take our food order, we were told we couldn’t order apps yet until we know what our entrees were— totally fine I understand that. He said “I’ll be back in 1 minute” 1 minute turned into another 30-45 minutes…. So now it’s almost 2:30 we’re trying to find our server but now at this point he seemed to only be taking care of the 25top that sat after us..

The manager was kind and took our food order. About 3pm we finally get our appetizers, veggie chips, Cesar salad and octopus. Once we got our apps, it seems as if we were forgotten about. No one came back except the bus boy.

At this point it’s 4pm & still no entrees. The server never came back. The dj is now packed up—brunch is ending. The 3 large parties all ate, paid about to leave. So I asked the manager if they forgot to “fire” our entrees. The staff was very apologetic and kind. They did send us complimentary pasta, Brussel sprouts and a round of drinks. It was greatly appreciated. Thank you for that.

However as a chef and someone that works in the restaurant business, I do understand that brunch can be an ugly service. But please don’t blame the kitchen staff for the mistakes that were happening in the front of the house. 1 server should not be working 4 large parties by themselves, let alone taking care of all the tables that were in the other room.

If you are going to promote brunch drinks & the fun brunch atmosphere, make sure your staff is supported. Maybe offer a prefixed menu for parties larger than 8 so that the BOH & FOH is...

Was here last night for dinner. Appetizers were good but the main courses were awful. I had one of the specials the Striped Bass. It was far from special and sent it back. It was rubbery and flavorless. Id describe it as slightly more tender than a hockey puck. My friend had the skirt steak which they screwed up because we asked to substitute the mushrooms for onions and they brought out only the onions. The waitress came out and said I didn't tell her than meanwhile she was the one who wrote it down wrong because they were rushing. Plus the steak had no seasoning on it so we took half of it home for the dog. For dessert we had the chocolate mousse. Again disappointing. I would describe them close the way a child in elementary school would make a mud cup. The difference was these were served in glass cups instead of plastic cups and they didn't have the gummy worms in them. When waitress was describing the dessert menu I asked the dreading question of "Which of these desserts are made fresh here?". The only answer would be the creme Brule which was served with these chopped strawberries on top. Perhaps it would have been a good idea but the sauce they put on top ruined it because the top of the creme Brule didn't have any crunch. Usually its just topped with dry fruit so it doesn't become soggy. Upon paying the bill we realized they tried to charge us twice for a handful of the appetizers. I'm glad my brother caught it. We got it corrected. I left disappointed and would definitely not recommend. The nicest part about the place would be its location. If you wanted fish you could at least go across the street to the South Shore fish market. If you wanted steak you could go next store to Jimmy Hays. If you wanted Italian you could go across the street to Gran Paradiso. If by chance you had to wait for more than 30 minutes at any of these other places that cooked fresh food to order then eating here would at least have a...

My friends and I went for brunch to celebrate a birthday. Our reservation was at 1:15pm, we ordered three bottomless mimosas, one bottomless Bellini, the espresso martini tower, 2 cokes and my fiancé got a cocktail. We didn’t get the espresso tower until 45mins later. Our mimosas/bellinis didn’t come until 2:30. After asking our server for the missing cokes and cocktail he said he’d be right back and then another 30 minutes passed where we still didn’t receive anything. We ended up having to speak to the manager because of the missing cocktail, cokes and the Bellinis that we received were not Bellinis. When I let her know that, she had to go to the bar and get the cocktail and cokes. It was only then when she came back that she stated that there was no peach for the Bellinis. (What my friend ended up having we still have no idea) Food was okay. When we received our bill, there were charges on the receipt for things that we didn’t have. When I told the manager she seemed annoyed to have to take the things off the bill. The restaurant was completely understaffed between waiters and the bartender. Also when my fiancé handed over his card to pay, the server returned to inform us that the card was 'missing.' We left our contact information in case it was found, and while we were waiting for valet, the card was eventually 'located.'" After this experience no one from our party would be...