After enjoying a nice show at the Oveture Center (5 stars for that if you havent been), we made our way down state street and entered Tutto Pasta for what was hoped to be a wonderful after show meal, but delivered a terrible experience.
Our...server who was also the bartender was one of the rudest servers I have ever encountered. Blatantly and purposefully disrespectful to all three of us at the table. After much negligence and repulsive service, our food showed up at random times, and admittedly our server stated that she gave one of our plates to a different table. We ordered two appetizers (spicy Italian cheese curds, and an anti pasta plate) and for dinner a salmon salad, veal parm, and spaghetti and meatballs.
The spicy Italian cheese curds were nothing more than overly soggy standard bar cheese curds, with marinara sauce that had a few chili flakes in it. The anti pasta plate was a poor representation of a plastic take home dish from walmart. Salmon salad was the first dish to show up to the table which was accompanied by a grossly overwhelming smell of fish that had been sitting too long. The salmon was completely raw (not the standard raw) on the inside, and when the server was asked to have it recooked, she acted like she couldnt be bothered and took it away. When it came back (mind you before any of dishes arrived) it was obvious that the same old piece of fish had been thrown under the salamander and man handled, then returned to the same plate. My wife did not eat any of it. Then the veal parm showed up. Extremely bad meat, overly saturated with sauce, and the penne pasta that came with it was still raw (not al dente, raw), shortly after this showed up the dinner salad that was to come with it as an appetizer showed up, and the onions and lettuce were both brown. At this point the final dish, spaghetti and meatballs, showed up. This dish was reprehensible as well.
Finally, we asked for the bill, and when the server brought it, she announced that there is an automatic 20% gratuity added to the bill. This is something I normally have no problem with, but that I have not experienced with tables generally containing 4 and under patrons. I am a person that generally tips well above the 20%. I have not only been a server, but grew up in a small family restaurant business so am very, VERY, understanding of establishments being busy, and or short staffed. As well as understanding that front of house is not responsible for mistakes or shortcomings coming from the kitchen. However, this entire experience was grossly underwhelming and disappointing. The last second announcement of a mandatory gratuity put me completely over the top, and if there was something the BBB could do about it, I would have already been in contact with them.
You may wonder why many things on my part did not happen in response such as: asking for a new server, talking to the manager, asking for the meals that were inedible to be taken off the bill, or completely berating the server and manager for the surprise mandatory gratuity being told to the three of us only at the end of the meal when the bill was presented (presumably why the server had no problem having an attitude, or realized she did so she threw it in to make sure she got 20%). The answer to that lays in the observation of the manager (owner?) being present for all of this, and watching him consume 8, literally, shots of fireball from the exact same shot glass another reviewer posted in a photo on here. Getting into a verbal argument with a drunk manager was not going to be the desert we were looking for, or make anything from our experience more pleasurable.
All in all this will go down as one of the most despicable displays of service and management I have yet to see in this industry. I would avoid at all costs.More