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Last Update: Oct 30th, 2016
Santa Lucia

Santa Lucia

2701 E Oakland Park Blvd
Fort Lauderdale FL, 33306
954 396-0930
Overall Rating
2.4
Food
Service
Ambiance
Value
Last Review
07/23/2014

Details

Hours: Open for Dinner 7 days. Correct hours are not available.
Attire: Casual
Parking: Lot with metered and free parking
CC: Yes
Alcohol: Full Bar
Outside Dining: Yes
Reservations: Yes

Pros

Convenient Location

Cons

No Privacy
Bad Music
Overpriced
Uncomfortable Ambiance

Critic's Review

The fact that his place lasted 2 years is surprising. When your idea is to open yet-another overpriced italian restaurant and to revive Rino Balzano, you have an uphill battle ahead.

Now Closed.

Review 7/23/14

Frankie and Johnny's has run out of lives, and the tiny corner restaurant has new owners and has received a facelift. The white tablecloth tables are gone and replaced by black lacquer. They've also enclosed the patio and added some more comfortable seating.

Santa Lucia Patio

Inside, you'll recognize the bar and the open kitchen as it was before. they have some high tops in the bar area now and a couch; trying to make it into a separate bar/lounge area.

Santa Lucia Bar

They've taken over some space next door and created an awkward fishbowl with 2 narrow "dining rooms". There are no booths; they have some bench seating against a wall but there is zero privacy anywhere in the restaurant.

Santa Lucia Dining Room

I sat at a "table for 2" in a restaurant that had 1 customer sitting at the bar. I ordered an iced tea with extra lemon. At first I thought he forgot, but then I realized that I was givin 2 skinny slices instead of 1; of course it still didn't amount to the usual single wedge.

Santa Lucia Iced Tea

Great to see a restaurant open 2 weeks that's already cutting back on the fruit.

They only had their dinner menu on their website; they're charging more than Celebrity Chefs in NYC for a bowl of pasta. One thing about Franky and Johnny's was that they had a great Brooklyn Style menu. They do have a lunch menu here with lower prices, but they didn't have any of my favorite dishes; no Eggplant or Veal Parm, and they had Sausage and Rabe but with no pasta. What it seems they've done is removed the pasta from some of the dishes and lowered the price from $22 to $16 for lunch. I ordered a Brodetto; a dish with Calamari, Mussels and Clams in a light marinara broth for $17.

Lunch comes with bread. It was delivered without butter or olive oil. I flagged down my server and asked if the bread should come with butter or EVOO, and a runner delivered 2 rock hard frozen pats of butter. Higher prices and no olive oil here. Nice.

Santa Lucia Bread

"Music" in this place is supplied by 97.9FM playing tunes from Hoodfellas, American Authors, Taio Cruz and Taylor Swift. Not exactly Italian Restaurant music. Note that these "tables for 2" are wholly unsuitable for a full meal. This would be ok for a glass of wine or dessert, but there was barely enough room for 1 person much less 2.

The entree came out shortly, in a much smaller bowl than I expected.

Santa Lucia Brodetto (Seafood Stew)

Semi rubbery calamari. When you figure that most of the volume in this little bowl was shells, there wasn't much food. This was an appetizer; maybe an $11 dish. I dipped the bread in the broth for some extra calories. The broth was ok, but not as good as what you get at Southport Raw Bar for a lot less money.

In it's current form, this restaurant has no chance of survival unless the owner is willing to lose a boatload of money. It's not a comfortable restaurant, it's wildly overpriced and there's no reason to believe that the food is superior to what you can get elsewhere. For lunch, you get a lot more food for less money at Il Mulino, and for dinner I can't see paying $22 for a bowl of spaghetti with meat sauce.

Frankie and Johnny's was a fun place where you got a load of good food for lunch for $9. New owners tried to raise the prices and failed quickly. This place is already nickel and diming on lemons and olive oil; with no positives I don't see why people will come.

UPDATE:

When the restaurant opened, they were touting Rino Balzano to justify their high prices. Rino has left the building once again, as he always does, and the high prices remain with Chef #2. Funny how these old time chefs like Rino and Sindaco don't have nearly the following that they think.

They're now using the "New York Water" gimmick; similar to what Brooklyn Water Bagel uses. Because, well, you know, you don't have to know how to cook if you use water from NY.

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