Forte' Tuscaloosa — Restaurant in Tuscaloosa

Bottomline: don't waste your time and especially money here. Chose this for my birthday dinner although I am a local and have heard only the apps are decent but the entrees are not good. The atmosphere is pretty so I really wanted to like this place and have a nice restaurant to visit in town. Unfortunately, us and another couple had a TERRIBLE experience here. The atmosphere is lovely, but the entire time we dined 2 men employees in suits stood behind our table chitchatting. Loudly enough, it was very distracting and unnecessary as the restaurant wasn't busy and there's plenty of space for them to hang out rather than ruining our ambiance of dinner with friends. The beef tartare and the French onion soup was good. The lobster is A JOKE. The smallest lobster I've ever received at a restaurant. It was over cooked and obviously not good quality. The NY strips were the most chewy steak ever put in our mouths, they also were served cut into strips, FYI. The Caesar salad with chicken tasted overwhelmingly like salty fish - we could only assume from overuse of anchovies. The server we had was sweet but service was slow and it seems they get a lot of complaints on their food based on the reaction when we complained. We were never asked how our meal was once we received it, only if we were ready for our checks. Once our checks were brought, then the server asked did we enjoy our meal. We responded it was one of the worst meals we have ever had and we were extraordinarily disappointed. She responded she wished we would have told her before she brought the checks and blamed it on their seasonal transition of the menu. I looked up reviews and the menu before we went and it was the same menu it had been for a while based on other reviews and readily available menus online. While she waited for us to provide payment, our table discussed this, and I decided I would ask again nicely if she could please speak to her manager about this even though we did already receive our checks. She obliged and we received a small percentage off our meals, not enough to really matter when the table was spending $400 on awful food and were starving after our meal. It gets worse... I mentioned it being my birthday dinner, my best friend brought me a sweet card and a birthday gift. We were so bewildered and taken aback by this whole experience, none of us realized we left behind my birthday gift on the table. I'm Type A and OCD so this is uncharacteristic of me. I immediately tried to call the restaurant when we got home but they were closed. I tried again the next morning, left a voicemail. I decided to call the front desk of the hotel, The Alamite which Forte is located in, as well and was told I'd need to speak with the hotel, that they don't open again until that evening. I called again that evening and left another voicemail. After never getting a return phone call, I messaged the restaurant on social media. They responded they would check to see if they can find it and let me know. Never heard back so I stopped by the restaurant and spoke to the hostess who remembered the gift bag, even by color, but said she had not seen it but took my info and would let me know if they found it. The manager also spoke to me and said their procedure is to take anything left behind to the front desk of the hotel. I told him I called the hotel front desk the next morning and they said to speak to the restaurant. He repeated the exact same thing to me again "their procedure is to take anything left behind to the front desk of the hotel" so I said okay, I'll go speak to the front desk of the hotel. Of course, the front desk of the hotel said they never got anything from the restaurant. They know nothing about it. The gift was a nice bottle of tequila, so I'll let you readers decide what you think...

We visited for brunch in early August. The dining room had just a few occupied tables. It took a few minutes for someone to seat us, which was puzzling but not off-putting to start. The dining room itself is very nicely appointed and pleasant music was playing. Once seated, it took several more minutes for a waiter to appear and take our drink order. He was very courteous. About 10 minutes later, we had no drinks and no follow-up visit from the waiter. A few minutes later, the waiter appeared with our drinks; he said he had made them himself when he noticed that no one was working at the bar. We ordered food, which included a beignet starter. The beignets themselves were not properly prepared. Rather than being fried, light, and air-filled, they were hard pucks of under-cooked dough. When the waiter came by to clear them, he simply said, "Good, right?" rather than asking how we found them. Our entrees were brought shortly afterward, the complete breakfast and the steak frites. The complete breakfast is a great value at $15 for two pieces of boudin, eggs, and toast; the "seasonal preserves," however, were simply a small jar of concord grape jelly. The steak frites had been ordered medium rare and arrived cold and rare; the "frites" were under-cooked in a manner similar to the beignets so perhaps the fryer is not working properly in the kitchen. The waiter never came by after delivering our plates to ask how the entrees were. After clearing our plates, he brought the check without us requesting it and without asking if we needed or wanted anything more; a dessert menu was on the table. All in all, it was a rather disappointing dining experience in a very pretty...

My family recently celebrated a birthday at Forte’. While we had enjoyed Forte’ in the past, this visit was next level. Upon arrival, our waiter, Blake, made us feel right at home, and he continued to be attentive to us the entire evening. My son-in-law and daughter ordered special drinks from the bar. They looked beautiful and refreshing, and both of them gushed about how much they enjoyed them. We ordered the Arancini balls and the Meatballs and focaccia from the Appetizer menu. They were so delicious, that there wasn’t a crumb left on the plates! I was thrilled to see grouper piccata on the menu. It was seared and served with a lemon caper sauce on a bed of sautéed spinach and farro. It was phenomenal! The fish was tender and flavorful, the spinach was perfectly cooked, and the sauce was bright and scrumptious. The rest of the family ordered pasta dishes and salads that were also wonderful. Finally, we finished our meal with sticky toffee puddings all around, which were fantastic. We all ate well more than we should have that night, but the food was exquisite, the staff was warm and personable, and the atmosphere was fun and fancy. We cannot wait to go back to try other special coffees, drinks, and the other items on the extended menu! Thank you, Forte’, for a beautiful evening that we won’t...