Bad Food - Horrible Service- My Personal Experience at this Popular Long Grove Restaurant

I went out with some friends over the weekend. A friend of ours was in charge of picking where we were going to eat. They live in the northern suburbs, so this place would be a surprise and a possible fun new experience. The restaurant that was chosen was Enzo and Lucia Ristorante in Long Grove.

OutsidePhoto bycfk

When you arrive at the restaurant area, there is limited street parking, but there is also a large lot across the street where you can park. We parked there and walked over a field to the restaurant.

My first impression of the restaurant was that it looked like somebody’s home. To be quite honest, the exterior looked like a large rundown house. It was slightly confusing. Where was the entrance? There was a makeshift sign that said to keep continuing to the rear door.

patioPhoto byyelp

While walking forward, there was a large entrance that seemed to be to the kitchen off to the left. Then there was a man sitting by a podium in the middle of this backyard-looking patio. Everything just seemed very strangely put together.

I informed the man, who I assumed was either an owner or a manager, that we had a reservation. He slapped me on my arm and said, "I got you," after looking at the reservation list for about a full minute. We began to walk inside. He never asked me if my preference was to sit outside or not. He just started taking me to a steep staircase that led to what looked to be the basement part of the restaurant.

our tablePhoto bycfk

Once we were led to the basement dining area, I was pleasantly surprised. It was a very nice-looking room, very well put together. Everything was very neat and in its place. I noticed a couple of servers; they all had iPads, so I would assume that this entire dining experience would be very efficient. They looked very up-to-date with iPads and not handwritten pads of paper.

I looked over the menu on Yelp because their website has a menu with no prices. This is a strike against a restaurant when they have no prices on a pasta-heavy menu. Prices for most of their pasta entrées were about $20-$25. I also looked over the non-alcoholic drinks and noticed that they carried bottled water. The go-to bottled water for the table is Aqua Panna.

Our friends were a few minutes behind us, but we were sitting at the table while waiting for them. A young girl server greeted my wife and me and asked if we wanted any drinks. I told her that we would like some Arnold Palmers and also a bottle of Aqua Panna.

Ceaser SaladPhoto bycfk

She arrived a few minutes later with a dumbfounded look on her face and said, "Did you mean Aquafina?" I said, "No, I looked at your menu. It said you carried this very popular brand that is in most restaurants." She said, "All I have is this," and gave me some brand I had never heard of. I told her that would be fine.

My friends arrived at our table and put in their drink orders. Some bread was on the table with a very tasty garlic topping on the side. It almost tasted like a bruschetta topping. Everything up to this point seemed like it was going to be a good experience.

lasagnaPhoto bycfk

My wife and I asked to share a Caesar salad. We had put in our main course order. I went with the lasagna, my wife went with the chicken Parmesan, my friend went with Bolognese pasta, he also ordered a side of meatballs, and my other friend went with vodka sauce rigatoni.

The menu states that they do not offer any type of pasta side with their chicken Parmesan. That will be an extra charge add-on. It is absolutely ridiculous to nickel-and-dime every single item.

The Caesar salad first came out, and this was quite possibly the worst Caesar salad I’ve ever had in my life. The dressing did not even taste like Caesar salad. I don’t know what it was; the dressing looked like the amount of a teaspoon. There was hardly any dressing on the salad.

chicken parmPhoto bycfk

A few minutes after receiving our salads, our main courses came out, and this is where the entire evening took a turn for the worse.

We put in another drink order, but our server completely disappeared. I don’t know if she had tables upstairs. I would assume that she was just serving other tables in this room. The room had maybe three or four other tables, but there were also other servers.

We started to eat our food, and every single item that we ordered was absolute trash. My lasagna tasted like somebody used half a container of salt. The lasagna noodles were mushy, and the sauce tasted like something from Chef Boyardee.

Vodka saucePhoto bycfk

My friend who ordered the Bolognese with the meatballs said the meatballs tasted like they were saturated in water, possibly from being frozen. The meat was grainy and left a grit in your mouth.

His wife ordered the vodka sauce rigatoni. The pasta was extremely hard and undercooked. The vodka sauce was the most unusual sauce I’ve ever tasted. It was horrific. My wife’s chicken Parmesan also tasted off. Everything tasted so generic and frozen. Nothing tasted fresh, and things were covered in salt.

side of pasta not included with any dishes you have to pay forPhoto bycfk

My friend was extremely disgruntled about how bad his meatballs were and wanted to tell our server about them. Also, we needed drink refills as we had been sitting for 15 minutes with nothing. Thank God that I ordered the bottle of water.

We caught a glimpse of our server, who literally would not lift her head up to look at our table. She had her head down, typing on an iPad in the middle of the room. My friend put his arm up to get her attention. She walked out of the room again.

Another server came to our table and asked, "Is everything all right?" My friend told him that he wanted to return the meatballs, as they were the worst he’s ever had, and that we would like some drink refills.

The server looked at him like he was insane. Our server finally made another appearance after 20 minutes of completely disappearing.

With the absolute most condescending face and voice, she said, "What is going on?" like a mother would talk to a child, and said, "I heard you did not like the meatballs. Why didn’t you tell me?" This was the first time we had seen her since we received our meal! Her voice also became almost baby-like when she began to talk. It was completely obnoxious.

She also completely forgot our drink order, which we had been sucking on ice cubes for close to half an hour.

I could not believe how condescending this waitress was. At this point, I almost wanted to just walk out of the restaurant.

By this time, I had only taken two bites of my lasagna. I did not want to go into sodium shock. I handed it to one of the servers who came by the table and said they could take it.

We never asked for the bill; we were still talking. We had almost a full basket of bread on our table. As soon as our condescending server saw that I did not eat the lasagna, she told one of the other workers to clear off our entire table. They just began to take our water glasses, the bread, and everything off the table. At this point, I just wanted to get the heck out of there.

She continued with this act, even bringing us the check with a condescending face and voice.

For anyone who would say, "Why did I not just send back my dish if I was unhappy?" I was not going to send back any more dishes. I will never come back to this place. I do not know if people in the North Shore do not know what true Italian food is supposed to taste like. Look at their Yelp page. They have high ratings.

The bill came to just under $140. There was also a 3% surcharge to help with the costs of the restaurant, which I also find to be complete trash. This place ranks in the top three worst Italian restaurants I’ve ever been to, and I’ve been to thousands around the world.

The waitress they have there, especially the girl who took care of our table, should be fired immediately.

Do not waste your time spending your hard-earned money here.

This place gets a rating of 2 out of 10.
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