I used to love this place but I won't be back anytime soon. I agree that the food is good, and I really enjoy the atmosphere, but after what I experienced other night it's not good enough to get me to go back until I hear of a major attitude adjustment.
Four of us went for dinner on Friday night. We got there around 8:00 or so. The all the tables were full so we ordered some drinks and waited for one to open up. A table opened up rather quickly and we were seated just a few minutes after we got our drinks. I'm going to guess that it was no later than 8:30 by the time the waitress came over and told us the specials. Since we already had our drinks we thought we'd share an antipasto while we looked over the menu and decided on our meals. But when I tried to order it
the waitress told us we could not order an appetizer until we ordered our meals! She said that everything that we were ordering had to go into the kitchen at the same time. I wasn't sure if she was joking or she just misunderstood me so I politely confirmed our request. Again, I was shot down! Her explanation was that the kitchen was so small that they had to time everything perfectly, including the spacing of our meals with our appetizers. I explained that we had not even looked at the menu yet but we would like to have something to munch on while we did. If that somehow affected the timing of the meals that we hadn't even ordered yet, we would be willing accept the consequences. She insisted that this was management's policy and she would not get us the antipasto, which is basically a salad, even after I pressed her on it several more times. Wasn't going to happen, no way, no how. I was ticked. She knew I was ticked. She knew why I was ticked, and she still stuck to her guns. Others at the table thought that maybe she was just telling us this because we where her last table and she wanted to rush us through dinner so she could leave early, but I tend to doubt that.
This place does a great job of recreating the menu and atmosphere of an authentic Tuscan restaurant. I used to like to go there because it really does feel very much like what I have experienced in some small towns of Italy. How they could screw up that wonderful illusion so badly on something so simple is astounding to me. Italy is the birthplace of
Slow Food for crying out loud! Of the 3 or 4 the times I've been there in the past couple of years it never came up before, but now that it has I am beside myself with the arrogance of this place. It may seem like a small thing to some, most perhaps, but it motivated to write this at almost midnight on a Sunday, so I guess it's important to me. So anyway, I won't be back anytime soon. If their management happens to read this I would love to get their response. Who knows, maybe the waitress was trying to get out early.
BTW, the food and service was good but we didn't bother with the antipasto.