Aria Steakhouse — Restaurant in Winter Haven

It kinda hurts to leave a such a low review for this place but I cannot in good faith recommend anyone take their business here. Especially when there’s Arabella’s right across the street which is genuinely fantastic.

We had reservations for 2 at 5:00 PM and specified that it was for my wife’s birthday. I also subtly reminded the staff of her birthday. No cake, no singing, not even a “happy birthday” from the waitress. But that was only the cherry on top.

As mentioned, we had 5:00 reservations for 2. The restaurant also opened at 5:00, so my wife and I were literally the first people to be seated. We ordered drinks and appetizers. We ordered the Onion Soup, Bone Marrow, and Wedge Salad. It’s clear whoever runs the menu must love sweet onions, because the food was riddled with it.

Service: Not good. I understand the restaurant was busy. But there’s a level of offense I take when I see our server visiting every table but only came to our table twice. Once to take our appetizer order, and once to take our entree order. She came back once when the steaks were delivered, but was otherwise a ghost to us until it was time to hand us the check.

Ambiance: It’s cute and mostly clean. We had to swat away a few fruit flies, but otherwise, the vibes were good. We were sat next to a fake fireplace which was nice. But played an artificial “fire crackling” noise which really got annoying after a while. They played this “lo-fi” playlist which was also nice, but got pretty loud occasionally which took away from the calm and intimate night I was trying to share with my wife.

Now for the food:

The Onion Soup: Absolutely packed to the brim with onions. I understand it’s an “onion soup” but the amount of onion in the soup was off-putting. There was more onion than broth. The soup was very sweet, not savory. I asked for a soup, not a bowl of soggy sweet onions.

Bone Marrow: I couldn’t tell you the quality of marrow because just like the onion soup, was drowning in onions. Completely obliterated and natural flavor that the marrow. Just like the soup, there was more onion than marrow. We ordered bone marrow, not a bone filled with onions.

Wedge Salad: I won’t waste your time with this one. But if you like onions on your salad, Aria is the place for you.

The appetizers really killed the momentum and hype we had, but we looked forward to our steaks that mind you, we’re over $140.00 alone. That’s right. No sides, no sauces, just the steak was over $140. Let that sink in.

But, this steaks are their specialty, right? So let’s see how good they are. Perhaps they’re worth the premium. Spoiler: they weren’t. Almost an hour later, that’s right, to receive two steaks. We finally received our order to utter disappointment.

24oz Ribeye: It was flavorless and hardly seasoned. Granted, tender. But the flavor left much to be desired. My request of medium rare was ignored and I was given a well-done steak.

10oz Filet Mignon: Same thing, tender, but no flavor. Not cooked as requested.

Steak overview: I’m not sure who is cooking these steaks, but the fact that both steaks came back with problems, is a problem. But at the price they are charging for their steaks, they should be cooked perfectly. You have no room for error when you’re charging $70 for a single steak with no sides.

They did offer to make both steaks right, but we didn’t want to wait another hour. They then said that we should have ordered sauce with our steaks. I’m sorry, I’ve never been to a steakhouse where they purposely make the steaks flavorless, so they can upcharge you $5 on sauces. Your steaks should just be good on their own. But at least there was no onions on them.

Lastly the sides. The brussel sprouts were over-charred and flavorless. We’re not even the kinda people who load up our food with salt. But the lack of flavor here was astounding. Do the chef’s fear spices?

And the fries. Oh, the fries. Go to Five Guys, order fries. Put them refrigerator over night and then in the microwave the next day. That’s essentially the fries...

This place tries so hard to be an upscale steakhouse, but it definitely missed the mark for us. ALL of the food we ordered was borderline inedible besides the bread they give you complimentary! 😭 My husband ordered the french onion soup as a starter, and I the wedge salad, and BOTH entrees were LOADED with sweet onions. We also shared the bone marrow as well and there were more sweet onions on there than ANYTHING else! As an entree, I ordered the 10oz Filet Mignon, cooked as rare as I can possibly get it, and they definitely did NOT serve me anything close to what I was expecting from such a “high-end steakhouse”. It was extremely overcooked with absolutely NO flavor, and super OILY! 🤢🤮 Even our server, Tammy, came by the table after she noticed I cut into my steak and commented on how badly they overcooked it. She then offered to have another steak made for me, but I declined because at that point, it had been over an hour of us waiting for our entrees, that we just wanted to get the check and leave. After speaking with our server, she then said she spoke to the manager (who I noticed he kept walking to other tables and checking in with them on how things were going, but not ONCE ever came to us!) and he said I needed to try one of their steak sauces in order to make the steak to my liking. (Mind you, a steak should be good ON ITS OWN! It shouldn’t have to be smothered in a sauce to be edible!) He also said to Tammy (to relay to us, btw, this man never once spoke to my husband or myself) that next time I need to order my steak “black and blue” so it’s prepared properly. Sir, I do not need a lesson on how to order a steak. I asked for a rare filet mignon, your kitchen served me a medium well (and that’s being generous) piece of meat and then having the gall to charge the prices you do? Insane! Also, both of our sides were disgusting as well. The beef tallow fries legitimately looked AND tasted like days old reheated Five Guy’s fries and the Brussels sprouts were… yet again… completely flavorless and OILY! 😭 Aside from the food being atrocious, service here is a nightmare in general. Everyone here seems to take forever, and most of the servers are extremely socially awkward. You are literally being stared down while you’re eating by half of the staff waiting to bus away plates from the table, it’s like they want you IN and OUT ASAP! Not to mention the fact that my husband brought me here for my birthday, it was in our reservation notes, and they didn’t do or even say anything to us about that. Didn’t even ask if we were celebrating anything when we checked in and were seated! We were also being surrounded by small little flies/gnats at our table the entire time. They were literally landing on us and our food! 🤢 I could go on and on about how bad this place is honestly, but I think you get the picture now. Save your money and literally just walk across the street and go to Arabella’s if you want fine dining in Winter Haven. Aria is a joke, and a really bad...

Two visits, two disappointments - won't be returning.

First visit (post-grand opening): Ordered their "30-day dry aged ribeye". As someone who regularly eats dry aged steak I was excited about the possibility of being able to enjoy an amazing dry-aged steak in winter haven but this was clearly not aged properly - it maybe sat in a cooler overnight at best, definitely not even two weeks aged. Great atmosphere and decent service, but the food quality is terrible for what you pay.

Second visit (birthday dinner): Decided to give them another chance hoping they'd worked out initial kinks. After waiting an extra 15 minutes after our reservation time we walked to the hostess and asked if our table was ready. She acknowledged we would be notified soon and would come get us at the bar. After being seated at the table we started with French onion soup that was more red onions than actual soup, and pork belly appetizers - the pork was crispy and decent but the sauce was bland and disappointing.

Main courses were disasters: My Australian Wagyu Picanha (medium rare) seemed like it wasn't fully thawed before hitting the grill - burnt to a crisp outside, more raw than rare inside, with an unpleasant "livery" organ meat taste. Wife's ribeye (medium rare) was completely uneven - the spinalis cooked well done while the sirloin was overcooked to medium. After waiting over 30 minutes for our main course this is unacceptable.

Drinks were inconsistent - I watched two bartenders make the same cocktail completely differently. If you're only going for drinks, request Chris as your bartender - he actually knows what he's doing. The skinny redhead should be opening beers, not mixing drinks.

Bottom line: Nearly $300 for two people, and after waiting 20 minutes for after dinner drinks, we asked for the check and left.

Save your money - Sauvage is nearby with better food and craft cocktails at 1/3 the price, or try Arabella's for actual fine dining. For the amount they charge for food (not to mention the "Service Fee") This place is all atmosphere,...