Reviews for Esca Restaurant & Wine Bar in Middletown, CT
I don’t like leaving bad reviews. The menu looks awesome. We had great drinks and appetizers. But we waited 3 hours for our... entrees to come out (after our server went to the kitchen multiple times), before we had to find an alternative. Our waiter wasfantastic but honestly something in the kitchen was seriously wrong. It was a busy Saturday night sure. But if you can’t seata full house you need to reduce your seating or increase your kitchen staff. Read more
If I could get this rating infinite stars, I would. I have to say that due to my food intolerances, and frankly not finding a... restaurant I like, I am usually reluctant to go out to eat. However, Esca changed all that. I truly believe this was the bestrestaurant I have ever been to! The entire experience was impeccable. Everyone was friendly and spot on with helping us have anincredible dinner. Our waiter was so on top of everything! We had drinks, appetizers, dinner, and dessert - every part of ourmeal was spaced out perfectly and tasted amazing!! Since I can't have dairy, our waiter even went above and beyond with mydessert! I LOVED this whole experience and can't wait to go back! Thank you for a great birthday dinner!!! Read more
I ordered take out thinking we would grab and go meet up with a friend. It turned out that the friend bailed on us. We asked if... we could eat our food outside and the service was great! Food was amazing! ???? Read more
The food was delicious. Everything was properly cooked and had good presentation. We had the Tuna Tartare, Cioppino, and... Chilean Sea Bass. For dessert we chose the Chocolate Tart with gilotto and caramel sauce. Not to be outdone by the chef thebartender made a fantastic Manhattan. One of the best I tasted. Debbie & I will be back to try other menu items. Gluten freeoptions available. Read more
Me and my Wife love this place! We been here few times, few years ago. I decided to take my Wife there again for my birthday... dinner. Like usual it was great experience. Great staff, always checking on you, smiling, welcoming, overall great. Food isfabulous! We got 20 oz ribeye. It was fantastic, asparagus was just perfect, same potatoes. We also had dessert. My Wife gotaffogato which she loved and I got tiramisu. Tiramisu was huge, i barley finished it due to being full from that steak. We bothloved that experienced and we gonna be back here again for sure. Highly recommended! Read more
Very nice setting and friendly service for this place. We drove up a bit for it, but was worth it. Had several dishes and... enjoyed them all. The only one that we could have a comment was the grilled octopus, the grilling marks or flavor were notpresent and the texture wasn't up to par. Everything else was excellent. The burrata salad fresh and flavorful, the burger, seabass, crab and lobster pasta and cioppino were great. Will be back. Read more
Beautiful restaurant with a great vibe. Great customer service. Overall a pleasant experience. For appetizers we ordered the... tuna tartare, grilled octopus and calamari fritter. The tuna tartare was bland and unimpressive. It did taste fresh. The grilledoctopus was out of this world. A perfect combination of the grill flavor with lemon. Perfectly cooked and tasty. The best plateof the night. The calamari were very tasty but salty. A little less salt and it would stand out. For dinner we had the ribeye.We ordered it medium but some areas of the ribeye were rare. It comes with potatoes and asparagus. The potatoes were a bit drywith only bacon and feta cheese. We also had the mushroom ravioli with shrimp. Great taste although it can improve. Thedesserts were wonderful. The creme brulee was awesome, tasty and full of flavor. The tiramisu was outstanding. Due to the tunatartare and the calamari I am giving them 4.5 stars although Google only let me pick either a 4 or 5. Read more
Great atmosphere and decor, very good northern Italian food and other diverse selections, excellent appetizers and charcuterie, ... surprisingly large well prepared portions, amazing bread, responsive service, but, sadly a self inflicted wound on the wine by arestaurant that calls itself a wine bar. Wine should be stored and served at 55 to 65 degrees. This is challenging for many restaurants who will hover around room temperature. Unfortunately, the bottle we ordered, a well selected unusual northerItalian gem, was nowhere near even that. It was every bit of 80 degrees. Literally warm to the touch as if it were close tobright lights or the kitchen. We had to put it in the water bottle chiller. At this temperature, for any length of time, wine“cooks”, a trade term indicating spoilage. Unfortunately, ours was close to “cooked” indicating long term poor hotstorage. This is sad because Esca has a smartly selected list with some delightful options. It makes no sense why they wouldinvest in very nice wines and then undermine them. We thought maybe it was our bottle alone but we saw other reviews complainingabout the warm wine. The average customer might not notice but anyone with any wine expertise will. Please Esca, fix this.Wewould like to come back for your delightful food but frankly, we would be hesitant to order another bottle.What an unnecessaryloss… Read more