Fiori Italian Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in Wilsons Mills

Original review below. This is an edit, second review.

Small portions. All food comes out way too quickly with some cold pieces. Still stuck on no side salad. We tried meatball appetizer this time, luckily we had 3 people because only 3 meatballs at like $4 each. Ridiculous.

We all tried new dishes this time. Stick with the $22 meals because all the rest are the same. Sunday Gravy was good, but location makes it over priced. These owners are trying to make up for mortgages/rent and taxes in this area. Drive 15 miles away and you'll get a halfway decent meal for a much more fair price.

Why did I go again?

Convenience

‐-----‐- Bottom line, we liked it and due to its locality well be back.

However... being a TRANSPLANT from an area where there are many top rated Italian restaurants, along with being a self-proclaimed foodie and married to a wife with an Italian Mom, this was only a slight comparison to past experiences.

I'll keep it short and concise case with no intent for sarcasm or rudeness. Any negative comment or review tends to generate a defensive feedback, rather than taking the information constructively.

Welcomed and sat quickly. Server and person st the door were top notch. We were sat somewhat near the door and each time the door opened, the cold draft was very annoying.

Ready to order. No simple chefs salad. All salads were all carte and were $13-$15. Just including a basic chef salad with a few cucumber slices, a shredded of carrots and a couple grape tomatoes would be nice.

Eggplant rolatini appetizer. Priced reasonably however it was very thin slices of Eggplant either not breaded or very lightly breaded. Either way, it was tasty but totally not comparable to any full-bodied Eggplant rolatini I've had before.

Dinner we ordered chicken and veal parm. It was $22/24. The price, per the description- with the usual included salad was acceptable and reasonable. However, the portion size didn't cut it. The piece of chicken I'd guess to be 8oz at most about 5" x 6". This is barely enough to fill a chicken parm sub or hoagie sandwich. In fact, I've had many, many very good chicken parm subs for less money and more chicken. At the very least, fill up the plate with pasta at least to make it look like a massive portion. I think doing that would make the chicken breast look lost in the middle.

Veal was the same but a much lesser portion about 6oz and measured 4" x 6". They were both "good", needed more sauce.

Bread. Was not a crusty bread. It was regular, average Italian bread but dehydrated a little bit to give it a crunchy crust feel. Not good st all. Olive oil herb mix was terrific but we were given so little we had to ask for a refill so many times we just gave up and accepted it.

Rather limited menu compared to 57 years worth of other top rated Italian restaurants we've been to also. No lasagna, no veal and peppers, a few other things. One of the big money makers was chicken and Eggplant parm. A full pound of pasta is about $1 and even 8 slices of eggplant is $1. Keep that 8 oz piece of chicken and smother it on a plate that FULL of the eggplant and pasta!

Summary. It was food but not great..sort of typical for the area where the pricing was a bit excessive but people accept it because there are no other comparable places to go. Also, with no mal-intent, having a true southerner try to rate true Italian food is just like me trying to rate the best biscuits and gravy and grits!

We'll be back, hoping for any expanded menu someday and an expanded portion size, even if it's filled with the inexpensive pasta and eggplant. The size of the chicken parm dinner we had was typically $13.95 - $18.95 in the Upstate area. And we always left with leftovers or at least a full belly. My wife even ate everything on her plate and she's a light eater.

Not a place I would recommend to bring children...

The good: This is a gorgeous restaurant. It could be a high end restaurant in Italy. Everything was bright, and clean. Walking in, I was very optimistic.

The bad: Everything else. Service: We waited over 15 minutes after we were seated to have a waiter stop by. It didn't get much better from there. And we got there at about 5:30 on a Thursday night, when there weren't very many people in the restaurant. Timing: Our appetizer came long before our cocktails ever showed up. EVEN THOUGH THE WAITER SAID THEY WOULD WAIT TO PUT IN THE ORDER FOR OUR MAINS, the mains showed up before we could finish the appetizer. For what you pay to eat here, there should be professional wait staff who know how to manage the timing of your meal. Food: Bland and overcooked. Downright burned. The marinara served with the calamari had no flavor. Like they opened a can of tomato sauce and threw it in the bowl. They tried to make up for it with red pepper flakes on top. Fail. The calamari was flavorless - except for salt. Like they opened the SysCo bag of pre-breaded frozen calamari and threw it in the fryer. The bread was stale - the bread had that crustiness that comes when you slice it and then let it sit out on the counter for hours before you eat it. The olive oil served with it was cloudy - almost rancid. The breading on the veal parm was burned. And the veal parm was slathered with the same tasteless marinara that was provided with the calamari. The spaghetti served with my veal parm was mushy, like it had been sitting in the water way too long before it was served. The pancetta in my wife's pasta was burnt. We ordered the ricotta cheesecake, expecting a cheesecake made WITH ricotta. Nope - this was a Costco cheesecake with a blob of ricotta plopped on top. The only highlight of this dish was a schmear of some kind of lemon thing - probably lemon curd from a jar. Price: All this mediocre-to-poor food, with a bottle of wine, and lax service cost $183.

At first, I thought: This was just a bad night, let's give them another chance. Nope! We were there early. There was no excuse for any of this. The service should have been on point, and the food should have been fresh and properly cooked. All of the food tasted like it's all the pre-packaged Italian staples that you get from SysCo - heat and eat. At this price-point, I would expect fresh, house made products. I won't waste...

UPDATE: UNfortunately I experienced Lisa behind the bar today. Terribly disappointing. She really doesn't represent the restaurant like the seven or eight other people, I interacted with there in 3 visits. At 12:30 today, she decided she didn't want a $100 tip because the kitchen couldn't prepare a salad that i've had for lunch two other times, this week (both with $100 tips) 🤦. The Sardina salad shouldn't have anything in it, that's not prepared all day, and in fact, I had it twice for lunch already. So for her and the kitchen to decide they couldn't prepare that salad for me, was just LAZY. It's unfortunate. She made me feel like my jeans and work boots somehow reflected that I didn't deserve a simple salad. I'm not sure who that lady thinks she is, but i'm not going back in that restaurant because of her behavior, and demeanor. Camilo was an excellent server also and the man that ran my food out. Do not remember his name. They JUST served me the sardina salad for lunch the day before and I gave him a $100 tip. Today I was going to give the kitchen a $100 tip also, but they couldn't make a salad because it wasn't dinner time according to lisa. You might think she would try to talk me into one of the other three salads they offer? 🤣😕 This is a great new restaurant... just avoid lisa at the bar. The food is epic! All the other servers and busers and hostesses were so friendly and talkative. And they even sold me on the extra dessert and the blood orange soda both times. I had the sardina salad, and I had the veal marsala, and I had the espresso and carmel dessert, Affegato? So freaking delicious. So I had that exact meal twice, gifted $200 in tips to the employees both times, because that's what I do.. It's kind of what I went in there for today until I met lisa. So if you go in there, you'll love the food, but my five star went down because of one person and they lost a lot of money, 'cause i'm a regular from thirteen minutes away. Spent $150 on a fresh BLT with 2 eggs and a chocolate shake around the corner instead. 🤙🤙🤦🤷🏻

Breklen was an excellent server and Alejandro was running food and busing tables. They were both friendly and acknowledged the customers, and they both worked hard. The shift manager said hello, and the hostess was very friendly and accommodating. The food was...