06/21/09

Best Calamari, Pesto and Pate

by dpsellers

I've live downtown for 4 years and The Garden is easily my favorite restaurant. The food is outstanding, the ambiance unbeatable. Have had nothing but good experiences there. The bad reviews here are very misleading. if you miss this restaurant, you miss out.

• Pros: Charming Downtown Garden Dining
• Cons: Some of the reviews here

03/07/09

Really Bad Experience

by DennisKovach

I presume The Garden is on the way out. I took my family there before the orchestra in St. Pete. The orchestra was wonderful, the Garden was horrible. The tagine (a specialty) was weeks old and served cold. The waitress was, we hope, waiting on her first customers because she forgot things, put her fingers into the wine glasses as she served and spilled the over-dressed arugala salad dressing all over the table when removing the empty (except for a puddle of pure lemon juice dressing) plate. I presume they broke some law by taking money for what has to be described as a fraudulent meal. There are other good choices such as Cafe Alma, etc. and I would recommend that you don't even think of going to The Garden of Evil. Dennis M. Kovach

01/05/09

Worst Restaurant in St. Pete

by FloridaGirl35

We live locally and thought we would give this restaurant another shot - as we experienced terrible service about 10 years ago - well not much has changed.

The food was awful, terrible! My husband and I took my 16 yr old and his GF. GF ate none of her salad as it was no nasty. My fish was supposed to be "fresh - like grouper" - no way. It was way overcooked and it was perfectly square like the frozen fish at the supermarket. I was told mine was the special, fresh fish topped with crab stuffing. I honestly cannot identify what was on my fish. It was runny - and seemed like sour coleslaw. My husbands chicken was tough, and overcooked. Our salads... well, I think it was the spring mix out of the bag, usually good - but this had sat and wilted. Also, we asked for Ceasars - apparently they do not know the difference... seriously - that is what the waitress told us.

The sevice was horrible. Our waitress forgot about us for almost 45 minutes, we had to ask twice for our appetizers... no refills on drinks and the food was cold. We are pretty easy to please, but this was just god awful. The icing on the cake was when the server gave herself a 22% tip, and charged it to our account... We asked the manager about it - he just said we can change it if we want...... It was a terrible dinner experience, I was embarrassed that we took my son's girlfriend there... I am going to be sure to tell everyone I know how awful The Garden is - I honestly think Red Lobster was 100 times better than this place....yep, I'm serious..

• Pros: None
• Cons: Overpriced, terrible food, terrible service