I have had good dependable meals at Serafina, the food is good, and the service is usually superb. I find it a tad bit pricey if you want to order salad, entrée, wine and dessert, but no overly so.
I was a little disappointed when I went for lunch last week. The patio/courtyard is fabulous in the summer, and has the feeling of a little square in Italy.
But there were a few details that did bother me about my experience.
I had to ask three times for more coffee before some actually showed up, yet our server didn't seem to be all that busy. Same went for water, our glasses were empty more often than not on our table.
The ravioli dish I ordered was described as being served with a "Heirloom Tomato sauce with Arugula" What I got was ravioli dressed in butter/ olive oil and halves of tasteless cherry tomatoes and a few traces of extremely limp arugula leaves (maybe 5). I felt it was just not what had been described on the menu. It was not a "sauce," it was more of a garnish on my dish. I was unimpressed with the quantity of tomatoes, and disappointed to find them not what I would think of "Heirloom" Tomatoes: gorgeous, ripe, sometime ugly things, bursting with flavor that has NOT been bred out of them for aesthetic reasons. These were anemic, tasteless cherry tomatoes. When I asked our server about it, she told me they were Heirloom Cherry tomatoes. I know that such a thing exists, but would find it hard to believe that the chef would be happy that tomatoes had made it to the table, or that the menu wouldn't mention that they were cherry or grape size...
This experience would not keep me from going back to Serafina, the food is typically quite good, as well as the service, but I might question returning for lunch, because it seems that the eye to detail that appears at dinner is not the same at lunch, and the entrées are a bit pricey at lunch. (approx. average of $14)
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