Chef Rolf's New Florida Kitchen — Restaurant in Venice

This is a review specifically for the restaurant and not our stay at the resort. That review is totally separate:

Comprehensive Review of Our Breakfast Experience

During our stay, we finally managed to have breakfast on our last day by arriving early. Breakfast at this establishment is from the menu and not buffet, which has its benefits. There's a section where some items are included, but you can purchase additional items with a small upcharge. However, our overall experience left much to be desired due to the service we received.

Upon arriving at the restaurant around 7:05 AM, we were greeted by Doreen, who was both the hostess and the only server at that time. There was one couple already seated, and another table was seated after us. Doreen seated us and then attended to the other tables, including those who arrived after us, getting them their coffee in very large cups. We had to ask for coffee ourselves and only received it after multiple requests. This was the only time we got coffee without having to ask repeatedly.

After some time, Doreen finally took our orders. The hotel includes a certain portion of the menu, and the portions were indeed generous and the food delicious. However, my wife accidentally ordered the wrong dish for our daughter, and we requested an order of pancakes to rectify her mistake. Unfortunately, those pancakes never arrived, even after asking several times.

As time went on, we continued to ask for more coffee, but our requests were ignored. We eventually asked a different server, who promptly provided us with coffee. Due to our tight schedule, we needed to leave, and when I went to pay, I informed Doreen that we never received the pancakes and did not wish to be charged for them. Doreen became flustered, went to the kitchen, and brought out the pancake, which had been sitting there for an unknown amount of time, even though we had already stated we didn't want it.

My wife had also requested a box for our leftover food, which Doreen never brought. When it was time to pay, she had trouble swiping my card and asked me to read my card details aloud, which I refused to do for security reasons. She then went to another register and tried again. Despite knowing the card was fine, I ended up using a different one just to expedite the process.

The other servers in the restaurant seemed to provide great service, being attentive and explaining the menu thoroughly to their tables. This made the contrast in service from Doreen even more stark. While the food was excellent, the service we received from Doreen was unacceptable and significantly marred our dining experience.

In summary, while the food at this restaurant is commendable, the quality of service is equally important. Unfortunately, our experience with Doreen was highly unsatisfactory and detracted from what could have been a...

Chef Rolf's did our Polish community dirty. The Polish-American Society of Venice rented out Casey Key Resorts (Mainland) for New Year's for a $150 per person party. Wow, were we disappointed by the food and service...

The moment we walked in, champagne was offered in plastic cups (not the plastic champagne glasses, but those plastic dentist spit-cups). There was a selection of mediocre appetizers, cheese, and meats, but I don't think I have ever seen smaller plastic plates (about the size of a baseball). There was no way to put a reasonable amount of food on those plates and since the tables were set up too close, it was a disaster trying to get to the food from your table for more food.

Dinner was eventually served. It was a spring green salad with strawberries and blueberries, chicken in creamy mushroom sauce, fish, and a man cutting beef. We were called by tables to stand in line like at an elementary school cafeteria (food was about the same quality). Since tables before ours had picked out the chicken from the cream sauce, and it was not replaced, half the people at my table thought that was just sauce for the beef, because they could not find anything else in those containers. The cream sauce was super starchy and too fatty (tasted like extra butter was added). The beef was cut in such small pieces, that my mom had to stand there and request multiple slices, which were reluctantly cut for her. The consensus at the table was that the food was somewhere between bad to mediocre at best, but definitely not worth the calories. The food at Publix in the hot bins is of higher quality and tastier!

The event was incredibly understaffed and some of the staff was very inexperienced. The event lasted from 5:30 pm - 2:00 am and our water glasses were only refilled twice the entire night. Fortunately, I came prepared with two jugs of water in the car, so I brought them to the table and kept filling everyone's glasses during the evening. How embarrassing! The young man who was clearing the table and taking plates would stand at one end of the table and just reach out so that everyone would just reach over the table and hand him used plates... he should have come around and collected used plates near the person who had the plate.

The desserts were not good, except the lemon bars which were fine. The carrot cake tasted weird and so did the cheesecakes. The chocolate chip cookies were straight out of a mass produced box and were bland.

Our group literally felt scammed. Shame on Chef Rolf's New...

Let's start with the fact that we made a reservation for Christmas Eve dinner here and upon arrival we were sat promptly and given bread once seated by our hostess. We then sat in our booth by the raw bar (which is right next to the waiters station) and recieved no water, let alone a word from a worker for 45 minutes. After going to the bar tender to get our drink order in and explain the issue we recieved our drinks and water. We put in our order and then waited another 35 minutes to receive our salads and raw appetizers. Before being finished with our appetizer our meals come out and take up the table. My fiance orders lobster and filet with mashed potatoes, the filet was on par with outback and the lobster was so over done you couldnt tear pieces off of it. I ordered the lamb, it tasted like old beef that was turned into jerky. And finally my mother ordered the veal, the veal was over cooked, grey and again cooked like jerky. Throughout our meals we had finished our drinks as well as the water and never recieved anymore drinks and when our waitress came by to check on our food we stated what was wrong. They had the cooks remake the lobster the cooks I guess had an issue and when the lobster was recieved this time it was ice cold. After explaining again to the waitress we got my fiance's meal comped. I can honestly say this is lower quality staffing than steak and shake and although the appetizers were very good, the entrees were down right disgusting. After getting the check we asked for a to go box for our dogs for my lamb and my mothers veal, which we never recieved so we took it to go in a napkin after paying 31 and 26 bucks for both meals. For the meals we ordered, we have had almost identical meals out at Michael's on East and I can tell you that the meals meat expectation, they are by far the best cuts of meat they can buy, the service is phenomenal and it is worth your time to make a reservation and the money to go there. But if you are interested in a steak from Chef Rolf's, then just go to outback, because there is no Chef that lives home to this name at this restaurant. And I also want to add that there were other people who had ordered even and things were taking so long to come out that they were getting up and leaving this establishment. My advice is to completely avoid this establishment and find another place to eat, perhaps flemings right next door, too bad we waited too long to get reservations there so we...