I don't usually write bad reviews on restaurants since it could've been an off night, but I felt compelled to review Cafe Cortina. My wife and I went there on Valentine's Day (Sat night)...maybe not the best night to go, but we had a reservation. We had high expectations since it is one of only a handful of 4 diamond restuarants in the city. When we walked in there was a crowd of people crammed in the entrance all waiting to be seated, but no host/hostess, so mass confusion. When the host appeared 10 minutes later he arrogantly walked through the crowd telling everyone they would be seated shortly with a ridiculous smile and swagger. He didn't check reservations and seated a group every 5-10 minutes, even though there were plenty of empty tables in sight (some people actually seated themselves when he was gone). We actually got skipped over a few times for regulars and were finally seated at 7:45. The host apologized to us and the couple behind us for the long wait and gave us a BS excuse how he wanted to give us a fireside view, which was ironic since the fire was behind my wife's line of sight and a wall blocked my view, ha. The poor couple behind us got stuffed in the corner, no view. After we got our wine and water we waited 25 minutes for our server to show up, who turned out to be excellent. We ordered 4 shrimp with green geppercorn as an appetizer ($12). It had no flavor and was very mushy. My wife ordered the pasta with lobster ($34), and I ordered a half and half of two different kinds of ravioli (one with cheeses, one with lamb and artichokes - $32). My wife's lobster dish was underwelming, the lamb in my ravioli was excellent, but the sauce ruined it. The cheese ravioli's were excellent. Overall, I would say we felt we got better pasta a less expensive restaurants like Brio, Bravo, and Andiamo's. We then ordered desert (Flourless chocolate cake with expresso gelato). The portions were very small. The cake was good, but the gelato had freezer burn.
Pros: Great Server, Good Wine List
Cons: Host service, pastas
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