North Italia

Reviews 3

CH

Christie Glasgow

North.... Not so much. My first experience at this restaurant was not the most pleasant. We were invited to a birthday celebration and the birthday girl wanted to go to North. My husband and I like trying new places and spend most of our weekends at the Domain whenever we have time. So needless to say, we were both excited to go because weve never been to North. Let me first review the food then the service. Food: I had the Chicken Parm. Now for myself, since Im such a picky eater, I got something I know. Robert (my husband) got the Sirloin. Now for the price of this steak, it came out cold. The taste was good, but cold. My Chicken Parm was decent, at least it was hot. Two of the other guests had the Spicy Shrinp, for the both of them, one didnt really like the taste and the other one found a piece of hair. Needless to say, appetites were ruined. Service: OMG, HORRIBLE is the nicest way I can put the service at North. When we got there, we were sitting on the patio under the fan. I asked the birthday girl the name of our server. No one at the table knew the name of the server. One guest asked the lady who brought us water and she told us Sergio. Sergio was MIA the entire time we were there. When he finally came back to take our drink order, I advised this was my first time and what did he recommend, so he gave his recommendations. Again, he goes MIA, he finally took our food order. We get our food and once the guest noticed he had hair in his food, we had to wait 5 minutes before Sergio came back. He was shown the hair, apologizes and brings another plate of food. This time the food was brought out quickly, that made me think did he take some one elses order or was it the same. Sergio didnt ask the guest if he wanted something else off the menu. Once everyone was done, we just sat there waiting for our checks. By this point, Im getting very irritated with this service, excuse me, lack of service. Sergio spent more time at the bar than at our table. We had to ask another server to bring us some water. Sergio even walked past our table several times to service his other tables. He finally brings the bill and its not separated. Of course its not separated because he failed to ask if the bill needed to be separated. At this point, the birthday girls best friend gets up and goes to the manager Dez. She speaks to her and about 5 minutes later Dez comes out with separated checks. We pay and when she comes back out, I give her my feedback and observations. She offers to give me a gift card after I tell her that this was our first time here and it was horrible. I told her to give the gift card to the birthday girl, because I WILL NOT GO BACK. So Dez apologizes, she comes back to the table with the gift card and ended up comping the birthday girl and her best friends meal. Dez then begins to tell us how shes been with the company for 2 months and they really believe in customer service, blah...blah...blah. However, we comped the birthday girl and her best friends meal. What about the person who is bringing these observation and feedback? Whatever. Again, I WILL NOT GO BACK to North.

RO

ROBERT BLUESTEIN

They have what i would call a Safe menu. The Specials that they advertise are nothing truly unique. Everything they do make however is quite good. The pasta sauce is actually spicy and the Chicken Picatta (or their equivalent) is outstanding. But once you leave North it becomes a very forgettable experience. As for the service however, dont ask to sit out on the patio. We lost track of our waiter and after we got out initial drinks it was a good half-hour before our dinner order was taken. Even then, it was a different wait-person who came to our table. Our appetizers showed up WITH the main courses and by then we had lost our appetite for the most part. It is always a service issue when you have to wait for the check, but that was par for the course - I actually went to the bar and asked for someone, anyone, to finally bring me my bill. Even still, there was no sense of professionalism or urgency when it became clear that the service with our table (not to mention our section) was subpar. (As a sidenote: The table to our left continued to ask for their drinks to be refilled and like us, their appetizers came out with the main courses) We continued to wait and wait while other people came, got served, and even left. There was a lack of consistent service from the wait staff - in fact, I saw a waitress taking initiative by running from one of the place to the other trying to keep up with the simple task of refilling water and tea. Our waiter sensed something wasnt right and tried to salvage the experience by offering us a free dessert (i always find that to be a bit trite but we decided to take him up on it...only to get stuck waiting ANOTHER fifteen minutes! We paid and left. Let me say this: The atmosphere is excellent...the food, you cant go wrong on ANY of the menu items even though what they do have is unspectacular....The service is not always this bad. I have eaten here regularly and have taken my clients here for lunch before. I dont think anyone who was in my section would be able to say that the waiters-wiatresses really took pride in working in such a great place. Appetizers should never come out with the main course unless asked for it. There was little to no attention to the drinks, service, and properly cleaning the tables. ...Nonetheless .... I still love this place, and want it to be clear that what we experienced that night was really an anomaly in a place that is really very nice. Whether they were under-staffed or someone didnt show up that night, it isnt always this way. So, as you come up to NORTH check the tables outside on the patio....You can check the drink glasses, and if they are empty, keep on walking to Maggionos in the Domain. If they are full and the people are happy, dont miss a chance to dine here!

A

A Private User

My family and I went to North for my fathers 60th birthday. I ordered the Mahgaretta (sp?) pizza, which was great, and my father ordered the lamb, which he said was the best lamb he had ever had. The menu is very limited but it seems, at least from my limited experience, the food is very good. It is pretty pricey however, so dont go unless you plan on spending a lot. My mom ordered soup and salad, which she wasnt very satisfied with. However, after the waitress took her dishes away the manager stopped by our table and asked if they could prepare anything else for her since she wasnt satisfied. My mom declined the offer, however he removed her order from our check without us asking or suggesting he do so. He found his way toward the front door and held it open for us as we left and gave us a firm handshake as he thanked us for eating in. The restaurant was busy the entire night, which makes the level of service even more extraordinary in my opinion. It is very rare it seems to go to a restaurant establishment that puts service above profit. Too many times have I seen a restaurant refuse to recognize you are dissatisfied with their food just to avoid having to reimburse you. In the end, that business model fails miserably. This is a prime example. If not for the great service the manager gave us I would probably not be writing this review because I rarely review anything online. I will recommend North to all of my friends.