Enoteca Roma Ristorante

Excellent all the way.  Sean the maestro at the bar paired some perfect wines with our meal.  Here's what we had...Apps: Arugula salad and Fried polenta with Ribolla Gialla.  Primi:  Carrot gnocchi and Ravioli Mortadella with Cirelli Montepolciano D'Abruzzo.   Secondi:  Giant meatballs and Polenta with venison bolognese with Cantine Barbera Monferatto.  He also reco'd some wonderful Amaros..Nonino and Mardini...with our dessert.  Doesn't get any better.  Thanks Sean!!

Delicious different bruschettas - apples & brie? Oh my!
The pizza is also rather magical - I haven't really tried anything else here unfortunately. It's quite pleasant to sit outside during the warmer months - beware of the service, sometimes not too nice.

Still good, but to be honest, the service is dropping off quite a bit.  They've hired a new hostess, who is always reading a book when I go in and barely will give you the time of day.  Plus, four times in a row this summer when I made reservations, I requested the back patio, and when I arrived there was no room.  The last time, the hostess blamed Open Table and told me to call the restaurant ahead of time with my request.  I told her I had--twice, once after making the reservation and once 15 minutes before arriving to confirm that the back patio would be available for my party.  The response was basically "oh, sorry."  If this had happened once or twice it would be forgivable, but four times in a row?  This last time was a special meal with friends from out of town and I had been praising the back patio (hence the confirmatory call shortly before we arrived) so this was extremely disappointing.  I told her this had happened repeatedly to me, but she did not offer any gesture of apology.  In hindsight, I should have informed the manager that this has been happening, because the managers at Enoteca are quite good at addressing concerns.  (More on that later.)

Additionally, while it's great that they have delivery service,it's been slipping lately. with items repeatedly forgotten.   The last time I called and mentioned that this has become a frequently occurrence, and they sent some free desserts, so they did get some make-up points for that, and I appreciate an attempt to remedy the situation.  (Incidentally, the offer would not have come had someone else not overheard the situation, as I heard someone in the background instruct the person on the phone "Offer her a free dessert.")  However, before offering the desserts, they blamed their delivery service, even though I'm fairly sure at least one of the errors (a missing sauce) was a result of restaurant staff missing it in packaging the meal.  I don't really see how missing a container of sauce could be the delivery agent's fault.  And even if it was, excuses are not my favorite thing. It's your restaurant, you hire your delivery service, and the buck stops with you.

I also had some issues ordering from seamless from here.  Evidently seamless does (or did) not have the restaurant's correct hours.  They processed my order and charged my card, but needless to say, the food never arrived.  Thankfully, someone at the bakery, which was open, called me to tell me Enoteca was closed, and suggesting I call Enoteca back the next day to make sure I wasn't charged.  When I called Enoteca, however, the woman who answered the phone basically told me it was Seamless's fault, so I'd have to call them.  Again, excuses.  (Seem to be getting a lot of those.)  As a restaurant, if you hire seamless or another service to handle online ordering, it's your responsibility to make sure they have your correct hours and menu.  If they're not handling it properly, fire them and pick someone else; there are now ample online ordering engines you can choose to handle these matters.  Eventually I asked to speak with a manager, and to his credit, he handled the situation, made sure I got my credit, and called me later to follow-up.  It's great that the managers are able to address the situation, but ultimately the staff needs to be properly trained.  If I had not had the sense to ask for a manager, I would have been extremely put off by this experience.

I think perhaps some recent staff turnover has this place slightly declining in my book, which is a shame, because it was my favorite place in the neighborhood and I've been a loyal patron for quite some time.  But this many flubs in recent months has to take it down a notch.  It still has a beautiful patio and excellent food, so I will keep it at 4 stars and give it a chance to improve.  But  if the service continues to decline (and frankly, does not start to get better), I may start saving Enoteca for my summer patio meals (if I get to eat there) and skipping the delivery, take out, and indoor dining.  The managers are great, but they really need to train the new staff to properly handle customer concerns.  And if the staff just aren't handling things adequately, just teach them 7 magic little words that can go a long way to a customer:  "Let me get a manager for you."