Amici's Italian Restaurant & Pizzeria — Restaurant in Viera

Amici's Italian Restaurant- Suntree- 2 Stars

Across from Publix, off of Wickham road in what is technically Suntree, one will find the Italian eatery, Amici's. As I entered the establishment I was rather impressed with the cleanliness and orderliness of the bar and dining area. The smells of Italian food wafted across my nose and alerted my stomach to the fact that serious work was about to commence.

I had my mini-me in tow (my young daughter) as I was directed towards an empty table and handed our lunch menus. Our server, Susan, soon appeared with a basket of oven-warmed bread (sadly, it was not made on site) and to inquire as to our desires for lunch with a disposition that fits aptly in an area known as Suntree. She was competent, exceedingly friendly, outgoing, spunky and well, sunny. It's a good thing she didn't take too long to see to our needs as the place doesn't have any WiFi (gasp) and the walls are thick concrete slabs that do not allow more than a half bar to a bar on any cell carrier.

I went with my standard Italian restaurant barometer and ordered their Veal Marsala along with a side of sausage and peppers, all accompanied by a glass of freshly brewed unsweet tea. My companion went with the childhood favorite of spaghetti and meatballs. The 20 minutes or so from the time Susan left with our order and returned with our food was enjoyable, if not excruciating. As I tumbled into nostalgia, I wondered how my parents ever maintained their sanity dining with me and my sister without cell phones back in the day. Oh, yeah. Dad drank. Do I love any time spent with my daughter? What dad doesn't? However, as my knowledge of the Littlest Pet Shop was approaching the Ph.D. level, our food couldn't appear soon enough.

Thankfully, Susan was seen walking towards us with our food as my daughter launched into her second favorite topic and dad's least...boys! The iced tea was deliciously fresh as required by Florida state law (see state Constitution), however, the rest of the fare, while mostly edible, was not all that fresh. The veal used in the veal marsala was low grade as it was a bit on the tough side. Not the worst I've had, but certainly not the best. The mushrooms were obviously canned and not fresh as they were uniformly cut and had the texture of canned food and the sauce was a bit heavy on the sweet. As I dove into my order of sausage and peppers, an oft-used phrase popped into my mind, "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." This was my thought as I noticed the grade of sausage was a twin to the grade of veal used in my previous entree. It was edible, but very low grade. The sauce was also not the highest quality, but the chef did what he could to make it passable.

My mini me took one bite of her meatballs and made a face that only a 10-year-old makes when biting something they don't like. She informed me that they were, "disgusting." Upon review, she was correct in her assessment. They did not taste fresh at all (we assumed they were of the previously frozen variety and not made fresh on site) and so were not consumed.

The Big Boy says, "It's not bad for a neighborhood meeting place, but there are much better Italian restaurants in the area." #bigboydiningout...

I never leave bad reviews. But this was a doozy. My girlfriend and I usually go here for drinks at the wine bar and order food from one of the other two places they own. AMICI'S OR CHEF'S TABLE. never had a problem. The food is ok, but it is a convenient middle point for us to meet. Yesterday we went with my husband and daughter and my friend to Chef's Table. My daughter really wanted pasta, but it wasn't on the menu. So we asked the waitress if we could possibly order it from their restaurant next door and get it to go so she can eat at the table with us and that we would order at the Chef's Table. Mind you, one glass of wine is $25. It's not a cheap restaurant. A wedge salad is $15, which was the smallest wedge sala I’ve ever seen and a bowl of lobster bisque is $17, not much in there either. After my daughter brough her food back to the table, the bartender came over and said she can go ahead and eat her pasta, but there's going to be a surcharge for you bringing that in here. I proceeded to call the manager over. And he came in hot with an attitude immediately. I asked him why is there a surcharge if the waitress said it was okay. He stated because if you go to McDonald, you don't bring in Burger King, and if you order it everybody's going to want to order it. I proceeded to ask him what fee. There's nothing on the menu stating that there's a fee and the waitress didn't tell us there was a fee. He made up some stupid dollar amount of twelve dollars. I told them I was not going to pay that and he said why not? I said because the waitress told us we can bring it in. If they were going to charge a fee , we would have been told in the beginning. He said well, we don't have Italian food on this side period, and I proceeded to ask him. "Then why do you have prosciutto wrapped mozzarella?" He was so loud that the customer behind him had to get up and move away from him. They were visibly upset on how he was treating us too, they ended up leaving. I asked him why would I come back if he was going to treat us like that and he said. I prefer that you don't come back. This place is mediocre if anything I don't think they realize that there's a new restaurant opened up called Urban Prime that is less expensive more hip and has way better customer service. They need to invest in customer service classes, especially when you are charging those prices. On top of it all, my friend chicken was raw! I told the waitress as we were leaving, didn't want them to think we were trying to get a free meal. Hope she...

We reserved the “Chef’s Table” room for a private event, my wedding rehearsal dinner. We were told we would have the whole room. We arranged to have cocktail hour with appetizers set up on the bar with everyone walking around mingling, then dinner at the tables afterwards. We set a special menu with the restaurant just for our event. They charged us more than the normal prices for each entrée since we were reserving the entire room. All this was planned out well in advance and the restaurant agreed to all these details. However when we arrive, there are already several tables of people sat and the entire bar in our private room. They tell us they didn’t know we were coming, despite having our special menus printed and ready for us. They tell us that no one else will be sat after these people leave and that we can have the 5 tables crammed up against the walls. No room to mingle, no appetizers on the bar. We overheard some of the other guests that had been sat in our private room complaining about us, and the servers apologized and told them that we weren’t supposed to be there. They continue to seat the other tables after the other guests finished despite telling us when we arrived that no one else would be seated. They eventually start trying to take some drink orders, but I don’t even receive a glass of water until almost an hour after we arrive, and it took another half hour to receive a glass of wine. When they finally bring out food, they bring out all of one dish, then the next dish, etc, instead of serving table by table. So by the time I receive my dish the first people at my table had already had theirs for around 20 minutes. Their food is now cold because they didn’t want to eat before me (the bride) had received my food. So at the end of the night they finally try to appease my mother-in-law by offering her two bottles of wine. They offer no real apology or explanation, just insist that it is a misunderstanding on our part. They charged us extra per plate to have a private room and didn’t give us a private room or offer any compensation for the absolutely horrible evening. Every attempt we have made to discuss this with them after that evening has just been completely blown off. They do not care about their customers at all. This is the absolutely worst place to hold a private event. I recommend that no one even go there for a regular dinner either since they think it is acceptable to treat...