We love Mario's wonderful restaurants. His cooking are out of this world. However, I have to evaluate if the food can compensate the horrible service. The hostess in Esca is so unpleasant that it really left a bad taste in my mouth. Due to my husband's work, we can never make plan in advance. Luckily he was able to leave early one night so we decided to find a great restaurant to enjoy a wonderful night out. I understand that great restaurants always required reservation month in advance but I decided to try my luck. The hostess answered the phone was nicel. She politely told me that Esca was fully booked but at 10pm should have availablility at the bar or (if we are lucky) a real table. We thanked her for the tips and looking forward all day. When we got there at 10:10pm, we saw several tables were empty, some were having coffee & a couple at the bar was putting on their coats. We cherrifully asked the hostess how long is the wait. With a smirk on her face, she said NEVER! I couldn't believe it so I politely asked her what about those empty tables, she said they are all reserved. Based on my previous phone call, she told me the last reservation is at 10. There're 5 empty tables when we arrived, isn't it a standard policy that the reservation is void 15 mins after the reserved time. We told her we're willing to wait for the couple to leave at the bar.She obnoxiously told us that we can wait outside. When we saw the couple left, we came back in. She said those two seats were reserved. WHAT? She just said the bar is first come first serve.We're so upset with the way she treated us. When we were about to leave the place, we overheard the hostess said she rather have the table empty than giving someone a table at this time, etc..and started giggling. Mario - if you want Esca to be profitable, you should fired this girl. She's the most obnoxious, rude and unprofessional hostess I ever witnessed. To keep her around, it's almost a disgrace to your name.
Pros: Food
Cons: The rudest hostess, Horrible service
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