Cafe Fiore — Restaurant in Ventura

Horrible experience at Cafe Fiore! June 27, 2024 @ 5:00pm. And please note, we are locals and have frequented this restaurant for years.

For this evening, we had a friend visiting who wanted to come to this restaurant. Reservations were booked for 5:00pm days in advance (and noted for patio as she was traveling with a dog). We arrive at the hostess station on time and stand and stand. A young man was back and forth but no acknowledgment.

None!

Nobody waited on us, even though he was right at the counter. Seriously all we needed was a smile, a hello and be with you in a moment! We all totally understand when things get busy (but it was NOT busy).

Finally, a young woman with short black hair comes to the hostess station only because the telephone was ringing and AGAIN…NOT EVEN EYE CONTACT with us or a smile and instead of putting the telephone on hold, she continues to talk on the phone. At length! At this point we discuss leaving but I said loudly that I guess the phone call was much more important than the guests - whom had reservations - and were standing here in person right in front of her! Seriously this was appalling. She acted like it was such a bother to greet us let alone take us to our table.

She finally, with a huff, shows us to the table in the rear patio. The last table in the back. We were seated next to an extremely drunk obnoxious man located directly next to us against the brick wall. He had a sweet old dog with him that we all felt sorry for as this man had no ability to care for the dog. The man was so drunk. From the moment we sat down. He would not stop shouting at us. We were polite at first then decided to ignore him. This is one of our biggest issues, the server kept giving him additional alcohol when he requested!! Where is the protocol for stopping this excessive behavior?? Talk about feeding fuel to the fire.

Part way through our dining experience, this drink man tried to get up and fell. Hard. Crashed against his table and caused all the glass to crash to the ground. Only one other two-top table was occupied, and the two of them and the three of us were just appalled and shocked at this was happening as we are trying to spend a nice evening having dinner.

Back to us. From the start, service was horrid! This was a Thursday early evening and not busy!

We had to ask for waters. Twice! My husband had to get up and go into restaurant to find a server to ask for Parmesan cheese, we had to go in and ask for another drink, on and on. No bread basket and bruschetta spread was ever served, really. None! In all the commotion we forgot about it until the meal was done. This should not have been on us. They should’ve served it at the top of the meal.

Food was mediocre at best. My friend ordered the Risotto con Pollo e Finghi . It was watery and not creamy. Looked like out of a box! My penne All’Arrabiatta was just blah. Not dressed with any presentation. Food is simply not up to a level for these prices. I swear they are serving boxed or premade frozen foods.

All in all. Simple not acceptable! Trust me. We will not be back. And we will spread the word. We gave them chances. We had another horrid treatment about 3 years ago with rude treatment by the owner - an older woman with dark hair - when she treated us with bad manners from the start. But because we enjoy the patio and the foods we’ve giving them more chances. We sure miss the days of Ursula and kind servers. We’re Thomas Fire survivors, we love this town. But we do not want to be treated like crap especially when prices are so high to go out to dinner. We spent $103 NOT including tip. And hated the entire evening. It’s...

Summary: Nice place, very good food and wine, but inexperienced wait staff dragged the experience down.

Pros: the food is amazing. I got the lamb shank and gnocchi and was amazed how the lamb just melted off the bone it was so tender. And the gnocchi was made perfectly. Wife got the seafood pasta and it was excellent, we both thoroughly enjoyed each dish. And the calamari appetizer was amazing. Their wine selection is nice and I found a good one to try. For the food this place is amazing, and price point isn't awful. $25-30 a plate for the quality of food is well worth it.

Cons: Wife and I went for our anniversary, we decided to go while their live band was playing thinking it would be a nice atmosphere. As we walked in there was a gentlemen and his wife leaving and telling the hostess how bad the service was, unfortunately she handled it poorly and came off as patronizing. Oh well, misunderstandings happen. We get our table and start to notice there's only 4-6 tables in the dinner area that have people, and there's 2 waiters covering those 4 tables, yet every time they came around we felt rushed. I'm sure they had work to do but with only 2 tables each, I didn't really feel like the wait times and rushed service was justified as they had different wait staff handling the bar area. Everyone was polite, thankfully, but on our first night escaping from hectic life and newborn daughter, we would have preferred a more relaxed evening with some more experienced wait staff. To be honest we usually get better service from Olive Garden. Again, nobody was rude, it was just that whenever they did come around you had approximately 2 seconds to make a request before they disappeared for another 10 minutes-- ask for refills while you can.

The band we looked forward to, but unfortunately even in the back the volume of the band is so high you can't hear anything. I can't blame the restaurant for this, the band is what sells their late night wine and beer. But I wish I had known. On our anniversary we couldn't carry a single conversation through dinner because the band was so loud. Just asking what the other wanted was difficult. By the time we were finished eating we wanted to go instead of staying and ordering more wine because we just needed to escape the volume.

End: if you're looking for a casual weekend place with very good food and a reasonable price point for the quality of food then this is a good place. Hopefully it was just an off night and the wait staff are more experienced. Food is amazing, restaurant is nice, but not so great service made our anniversary feel pretty lack luster. Band is very loud but again-- that's not entirely unexpected, just would have been nice to not have to yell across the table to ask how my...

Never again. We were a party of 6 in for dinner. ( 3 are from Sicily). It was the worst meal and service we have ever experienced. Let me start with our waitress who from the beginning gave us attitude, like we were an inconvenience. She was rude, condescending, totally disrespectful and nowhere to be found. Starting with our app and salad orders. After we ordered the calamari, I was still looking at the salads and she asked if we were ordering any, the other side of the table said no and she disappeared before I had even a chance to order my salad. Coming back a long while later she took our orders. My husband has some food restrictions and was giving her instructions on how he wanted his salad. He simply asked if the grilled chicken had seasoning. She said in a condescending tone, "probably." Excuse me? Not "let me check that for you." One person in our party who was sitting near where she was taking the orders said she mumbled something under her breath like she was annoyed. ok we let that go. Now the food. The calamari and fried vegetables were served. The calamari tasted like a rubber tire and so did the vegetables, completely overcooked. I've had calamari thousands of times and it's usually tender, and juicy. This entire dish was inedible. We sat for about 30 minutes without anyone checking in on us. My water glass was empty with out a refill. Our food finally arrived. Another round of total disaster. The risotto was overly salted, the pasta with the red sauce was dark and overcooked as if they took red paste and burned it on the pan and dumped it on pasta. My mussels and clams were gritty and sandy. My husband's martini was horrible and had the wrong olives. We picked at our food and finally asked for the bill. Here's the icing on the cake of the whole night. She said oh I have it right here and then ANNOUNCED the amount of the bill to the whole table. We all looked at each other completely stunned and shocked. NEVER has any waiter or waitress ever ANNOUNCED the amount of the bill. This is just basic restaurant etiquette. Then she handed my husband her ipad with no print out of the bill. We still don't know what we paid for. As we were walking out the waitress gave my husband a nasty look as if to say thanks for the meager tip. She's lucky he even gave a tip at all. Please go anywhere but here. The owners should be embarrassed and ashamed....